Greg Debora Leads Final 10 as Bill Chen Chases His Third Bracelet
The $10,000 Limit Hold'em Championship has been cut down to the final 10 and Greg Debora leads the way with 749,000 in chips. Debora, from Toronto, Canada, faces a tough crowd as he chases his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet on Day 3.
The biggest name at Saturday's final table is Bill Chen. Chen won two bracelets at the 2006 WSOP when he took down the $3,000 Limit Hold'em event and the $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em Short-Handed event. Top-notch high-stakes cash-game player Brian Tate sits in second place heading into the final day, followed by Samuel Golbuff and Paul Mannoni.
Norwegian poker pro Jan Sjavik sits in fifth place, and he's been in spots like this before. Sjavik has five WSOP final tables, with the first one dating back to 2001. Four of those were limit hold'em events. Mikail Tulchinskiy, third-place finisher in the 2009 European Poker Tour Grand Final, David Olson, Robert Como, and Gabriel Nassif are also still in the hunt, but on the shorter side of things. Nassif already has a third-place finish at this year's WSOP in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event.
The second day of play today went at a rapid pace. Top pros like James Obst, Mike Watson, Eli Elezra, Nick Schulman, and Mike Leah all fell short of the money, while a plethora of others remained in contention. With the money in sight, and just three tables remaining, the field lost Paul Volpe, Ronnie Bardah, Antonio Esfandiari, JC Tran, and George Danzer.
Eventually, it was Yakov Hirsch who bubbled the event after more than 90 minutes of bubble play.
With two tables remaining, eliminations followed each other in quick succession. Kyle Ray and David Chiu busted almost immediately after the redraw, and Kenny Shei and Cathleen Tran didn't last much longer. Towards the end of the night, Debora and Tate dominated, which translated into big stacks for both players going into Saturday.
| Seat | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jan Sjavik | 327,000 |
| 2 | Samuel Golbuff | 459,000 |
| 3 | Paul Mannoni | 403,000 |
| 4 | Mikail Tulchinskiy | 298,000 |
| 5 | Gabriel Nassif | 154,000 |
| 6 | Bill Chen | 318,000 |
| 7 | Greg Debora | 749,000 |
| 8 | Robert Como | 39,000 |
| 9 | Brian Tate | 670,000 |
| 10 | David Olson | 247,000 |
Make sure to tune back in with us at 2 p.m. local time on Saturday as this championship event reaches its epic conclusion.
In the meantime, here's a video with Brian Rast to talk about the new partnership between 3Bet and One Drop, and also to discuss his participation in the Big One for One Drop this year.