Level: 25
Blinds: 25,000/50,000
Ante: 5,000
Level: 25
Blinds: 25,000/50,000
Ante: 5,000
Our six final tablists are doing a little multitasking right now, emptying their bags, stacking their chips, and getting miked up for the ESPN3 broadcast. We're setting the line at about 10 minutes to showtime.
25 year-old Mikael Thuritz is regarded as one of the best high-stakes no-limit hold'em cash game players online. Originally from Sweden, this marks his fifth WSOP cash and his third this year. Thuritz made the final table of the $50,000 Players' Championship earlier in the series and finished in eighth place. His total WSOP earning total more than $450,000 and he has nearly $1.4 million in career tournament earnings.
Shawn Buchanan is a native of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Since he started playing in 2001, he has amassed more than $2.5 million in career tournament earnings and has cashed at the WSOP 17 times-- 8 of those cashes coming in 2010 alone. This is Buchanan's second WSOP final table appearance. He also has a World Poker Tour title, winning the 2007 Mandalay Bay Poker Championships.
Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, Eugene Katchalov now calls New York City home. Before turning to poker as a career he worked in the finance industry as a trader. This is Katchalov's 19th WSOP cash and his fifth final table. Three of those final tables have come this yet-- he finished third in the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. event and seventh in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo event. He is also a feared online player, going by the handle "MyRabbiFoo." Katchalov is the short stack coming in to play today and will be looking for an early double-up.
From Potomac, Maryland, Dan "djk123" Kelly is a 21-year-old World Series of Poker rookie who's having himself a pretty nice debut. This event marks his fourth cash so far, and it'll easily be his largest. His previous three cashes totaled less than $25,000, and he's guaranteed to walk away with at least eight times that much here today. Kelly's got his sights set on something a little bigger than that payday though. He's managed to build himself a huge chip lead over the last three days, and he's going to be driving his towering stack in the direction of a gold bracelet and more than $1,000,000.
Jason Somerville has come to Vegas from Stony Brook, New York, and he's having himself a pretty nice World Series of Poker as well. This is his third cash so far, and one of those was a semifinal showing in the $10,000 Heads-Up Championship. That was good for more than $200,000, and Somerville has nearly $800,000 in total career earnings. He's cashed in each of the last four WSOPs, and he's still well in the hunt for his first bracelet here today.
Those who weren't familiar with Frank Kassela before this WSOP have watched him make a thunderous splash on the poker scene this summer. The Las Vegas resident has tallied five cashes including this one to put himself more than $650,000 to the good. Oh, and then there's those two gold bracelets he's engraved his name on; he's the only double bracelet winner (so far) in 2010.
He's got a chance to add an astounding third to his display case here today, but he's on the verge of another great accomplishment. Kassela currently has a 45-point lead over John Juanda in the Player of the Year standings, and each player that busts in front of him today moves him closer to locking up that achievement. With only the Main Event left after tomorrow, just a handful of players still have a shot at catching Kassela.
Mr. Kassela has put himself in a good spot once again; he comes into this final day in second place with 2,610,000 chips.
Event #52: $25,000 No-Limit Hold��em / Six Handed
Day 4 Started