Arieh Leads the Final Six in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, Ivey Falls in 8th
The 2019 Poker Players Championship final table has been set as the 74-player field dwindled to the last six contenders. They will battle it out on Friday, June 28, at 12 p.m. local time with the $1,099,311 top-prize and the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy on the line.
Josh Arieh is leading the final six with 6,220,000. Arieh led the tournament after Day 1, stayed in top five after Day 2 and trailed only Phil Ivey coming into Day 4. While Ivey's today's session at the table was a Thursday to forget, Arieh controlled the action on the outer feature table.
Final table lineup:
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shaun Deeb | United States | 2,485,000 |
| 2 | Bryce Yockey | United States | 4,465,000 |
| 3 | Dan Cates | United States | 1,260,000 |
| 4 | Phillip Hui | United States | 4,135,000 |
| 5 | John Esposito | United States | 3,630,000 |
| 6 | Josh Arieh | United States | 6,220,000 |
Arieh first approached the 6-million mark when he picked off Dario Sammartino in pot-limit omaha in which he'd flopped threes full of eights. Bryce Yockey took over the chip lead for a brief stint but Arieh would soon reestablish himself as the leader.
Meanwhile, Ivey took a beat after beat on the TV table and his stack kept plummeting. The 10-time bracelet winner eventually bubbled the final redraw, adding the eighth-place finish to his collection of PPC cashes (this was his fourth).
The play resumed for another two hours with the field spread into two groups. Arieh, Yockey, and John Esposito were all flirting the lead while Shaun Deeb, Phil Hui, Dan Cates, and David Oppenheim oscillated between 10 and 15 big bets.
Hui was able to hit a streak of winning hands to separate himself from the bottom stacks and even eclipse Esposito in the standings. Oppenheim, on the other hand, started to slip. He fell under five bets and, unfortunately for him, couldn't recover.
The end of Oppenheim's run would come in a three-way clash in omaha hi-lo. Following a four-bet action on a flop, the turn filled a king-high straight for Esposito and Yockey. Oppenheim put in his last chips, holding top two pair and a Broadway draw, but the river bricked and the other two players chopped his stack as they both held king-queen in their respective hands.
Oppenheim's elimination brought Day 4 to its conclusion and the final six players will continue in a set of razz hands. There are 57 minutes left to play in level 22 with the 100,000/200,000 limits.
Neither of the final six players had previously made it this far. Deeb had notched two PPC cashes in his career with a 7th place from 2017 being his better one. Arieh had made money once, finishing 13th back in 2011 and tomorrow will bring a debut PPC payday for the remaining four finalists.
Come back to PokerNews on Friday at 12 p.m. to follow the live updates from the final table with one of the most prestigious poker tournaments on the planet about to crown its 2019 champion.
