None could top the following hand, however, which took place just after midnight EST.

Sauce123 entered the hand with $107,742 to Amit’s $42,898.

Amit, who plays on PokerStars as refaelamit, opened for $580, Sauce123 three-bet to $1,920 and Amit four-bet to $4,120.

Finally Sulsky decided to end the betting by just calling.

The flop came 7♥ 6♣ 5♠ and then the real fireworks started.

Sauce123 checked but Amit immediately fired for $5,800. Sulsky check-raised to $13,400 and Amit re-raised to $17,400.

At this point Sauce123 decided to just jam, easily covering Amit. Amit eventually made the call and the cards were on their backs.

Amit: 8♦ 6♥ 5♥ 4♠ (eight-high straight)

Sulsky: T♣ 9♦ 8♣ 6♠ (nine-high straight)

It’s always hard to get far ahead in PLO but in this case Sulsky had Amit crushed. According to our pot odds calculator Sulsky had a stranglehold on the hand and was a 79.52% favorite to win with his better straight.

Amit did have some outs as they headed to the turn, however, with full house possibilities and a backdoor flush draw.

The turn was the K♦, which quickly put to rest any weird flush draws, but the river was a thundering 6♦ giving Amit a boat and the pot. He ended up raking in $85,794 thanks to the lucky river card.

It wasn’t all bad for Sauce123, however, as he would eventually finish the session as the ultimate winner with $80,429 in profit.

Sauce123 is off to an exceptional start in 2012 and has already picked up $671k in the first month of online poker.

Be sure to check our online poker stats section for more information but in the meantime you can see exactly how the hand played out in our hand-replayer below:

After a couple late entrants and an adjustment to the prize structure, the money distribution has been set. All told, there were 659 runners contributing to a AUD $6.59 million prize pool. The top 72 players will get paid, with the eventual winner banking AUD $1.6 million and those that just make the money rewarded with AUD $15,000. Here is a look at the official payouts for the final table, in Australian dollars:

1.    $1,600,000
2.    $1,000,000
3.    $610,000
4.    $405,000
5.    $300,000
6.    $230,000
7.    $170,000
8.    $125,000
9.    $125,000

O’Shea reached the top of the leader board primarily because of one hand from late in the day. Already with a chip stack of almost half a million (which would have still put him in the top ten going into Day 3), he raised under the gun pre-flop and Josh Barrett called him from the big blind. The prime number flop of 3-5-7 produced some raising and re-raising prior to a 4 being dealt on the turn. At that, Barrett checked, O’Shea bet 125,000, and Barrett called. Similarly, upon seeing an Ace on the river, Barrett checked-called again, this time for 150,000 chips. That turn card is what did it for O’Shea, as he held A-6 for a straight. Barrett had flopped two pair with his 5-7 and was none too happy to see that he had been beaten. That pot launched O’Shea to the top of the field, as it grew his stack to 940,000 chips. Barrett fell to 245,000. He has since dipped below 200,000, but he is still alive and could be in much worse shape.

The beginning of Day 3 should be interesting, as only two players need to be eliminated for the money bubble to burst. Coincidentally, two players – James Sin and Patrick Lui – are in utter desperation mode, as their stacks of 10,500 and 7,000, respectively, are miniscule compared to the blinds and antes of 2,000/4,000/500. Three other players are only in the 30,000’s, giving them around 8-9 big blinds with which to play. Nobody else is below 12 big blinds.

Day 3 will start up at 12:30pm local time at the Crown Casino in Melbourne.

2012 Aussie Millions Main Event – End of Day 2 Chip Leaders

1.    Tim O’Shea – 921,000
2.    Phil Ivey – 778,500
3.    Aage Ravn – 708,500
4.    Jason Koon – 667,500
5.    Oliver Speidel – 540,000
6.    Patrick Healy – 521,000
7.    Yann Dion – 495,000
8.    Mohamad Kowssarie – 477,000
9.    Rob Angood – 470,500
10.    Janis Lesiwski – 463,500

Surprisingly, since they played two six-figure pots and a slew of other monsters, neither Berndsen or D'Auteuil cracked the biggest winners or losers lists on the day.

Berndsen finished just over $9,000 up while D’Auteuil lost roughly the same. Let’s take a closer look at the day’s two biggest pots.

takechip Fades 12 Outs Twice for $101k

Game: $100/$200 No-Limit Hold’em on PokerStars

Players and Stacks:

The biggest pot of the day began with Berdsen12 opening K♣ 4♣ to $500 from the button and takechip three-betting to $1,800 with J♥ J♠ from the big blind.

The flop came T♣ 8♥ 5♣ and takechip c-bet $2,200 into $3,600, looking to squeeze out some value with his overpair.

Berndsen flopped the second nut flush draw with an overcard and semi-bluff raised to $5,800. takechip re-raised to $13,300 and Berndsen clicked it back to $20,800. takechip then made it $45,300, leaving himself just $3,684 behind, and Berndsen shoved all-in.

Berndsen missed on the turn and river and the $101,488 pot was shipped to D’Auteuil.

Check out the replay:

Replay this hand at pokerlistings

Berndsen Sheriffs, Loses $99k

The second biggest pot of the day was also won by Phil D’Auteuil, this time thanks to straight-up value-towning with an overpair on a low board.

Game: $100/$200 No-Limit Hold’em

Players and Stacks:

With a fresh $50k stack takechip three-bet 9♣ 9♥ from the big blind and got a call from Berndsen on the button with T♥ 6♥.

The flop rolled out 6♣ 4♣ 3♣ and takechip led out for $2,300, call. The 8♦ on the turn brought an $11,400 bet from takechip and another call from Berndsen. The 8♥ hit the river and takechip bet $34,360 into $31,200, basically all-in since he had left himself just $40.

Berndsen made the hero call and the just-under-six figure pot was shipped to the French-Canadian.

Here’s the replay:

Replay this hand at pokerlistings

Here were the chip counts to start the final table:

David Shallow – 6,155,000
Steve Watts – 1,600,000
Patrik Vestlin – 1,100,000
Charles Chattha – 835,000
Ronan Gilligan – 775,000

While the final table was very short by World Poker Tour standards, coming in at under three hours, it wasn’t a totally smooth ride for Shallow.  Right off the bat, he doubled-up both Patrik Vestlin and Ronan Gilligan, causing his chip stack to fall to 4,276,000.  Gilligan rode the momentum, eliminating Steve Watts in 5th place.  Watts had moved all-in pre-flop with T-T for his remaining 1,130,000 and Gilligan called him with A-K.  The flop was Q-J-7, which was generally good for Watts, but it did give Gilligan a straight possibility if he could hit one of the remaining two Tens to go along with the 6 outs he already had.  No dice on the turn, but the river produced one of those Tens, allowing Gilligan to knock Watt out with a Broadway straight.  That pot took Gilligan up to 2,898,000, which was still a good chunk behind Shallow, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome.  It looked a whole heck of a lot better than the more than 5,000,000 chip deficit he faced about a half-hour earlier.

Just a few minutes later, Gilligan continued his hot streak.  Patrik Vestlin raised pre-flop and Gilligan called from the big blind.  The two saw a flop of 9s-7s-3s and Vestlin made the first bet with As-Qc, giving him the nut flush draw.  Gilligan check-raised to 450,000 with Js-9d – top pair and a flush draw – and Vestlin shoved for 1,750,000.  Gilligan thought a bit about his decision, but decided it was worth the risk and called.  The turn was the Tc; black, but the wrong black.  Another tease presented itself to Vestlin on the river in the form of the 8c and Gilligan’s hand held up.  Vestlin was gone in 4th place and just like that, less than an hour into play, Ronan Gilligan, the shortest stack to start the final table, was the chip leader.  He had 4,852,000, Shallow had 4,259,000, and Chaz Chattha had 1,029,000 chips.

After that, though, it appeared that Gilligan’s confidence may have gotten too high, as he began making some reckless raises and calls with marginal holdings.  Having watched his stack take several hits, he once again made a call of a David Shallow pre-flop raise with just 3-4 in the hole.  Shallow had T-9 and the flop was friendly to both, giving top pair to Shallow and an open-ended straight draw to Gilligan.  Shallow led out on the turn for 215,000, Gilligan raised to 525,000, Shallow moved all-in, and Gilligan called.  Gilligan couldn’t find the outs to complete the straight on either the turn or river and he was eliminated in 3rd place.

Going into heads-up play, David Shallow once again had a large chip lead over Chaz Chattha, 7,280,000 to 2,860,000.

Shallow was very aggressive heads-up, a style for which he is known, but that style came back to bite him less than 20 minutes into the one-on-one match.  Looking at just K-3 suited, he watched Chattha raise pre-flop to 140,000 and decided to three-bet it to 360,000.  Chattha took it up to 600,000, Shallow moved all-in, and Chattha quickly called.  And no wonder.  Holding pocket Queens, Chattha was a big favorite over most hands.  Shallow hit a 3 on the flop, but nothing else materialized and all of a sudden, Chattha had a slight chip lead, 5,180,000 to 4,960,000.

Just after that, Shallow regained a small edge, taking a couple small pots, and that was all he needed when the big hand was dealt.  With Q-Q, Shallow raised pre-flop to 135,000, only to see Chattha re-raise him to 380,000 with 9-9.  Shallow raised him back, making it 825,000 and Chattha moved all-in.  Shallow made the call.  The flop ran out K-K-2, pretty much as bad as it could get for Chattha without a Queen showing up.  The turn 8 and river 3 sewed it up for David Shallow, who won WPT Ireland along with the €222,280 first prize and a $25,000 seat in the season-ending WPT World Championship.

World Poker Tour Ireland – Final Table Results

1.    David Shallow – €222,280 ($289,031)
2.    Charles Chattha – €111,130 ($144,502)
3.    Ronan Gilligan – €74,090 ($96,339)
4.    Patrik Vestlin – €52,600 ($68,396)
5.    Steve Watts – €39,270 ($51,063)

18 men came back to the tables on Friday, looking to get down to at least the final eight handed final table and potentially all the way to the final five (the players who will cash in the tournament). Kicking off the action, Isaac Haxton was in charge, but in pursuit were Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom and a player who always seems to be in the mix when a High Roller title is up for grabs, Erik Seidel.

From the start, the leaders did not treat each other kindly. Haxton and Blom squared off in one of the first hands of the day, with Blom raising the pot to 13K and Haxton calling out of the big blind. A 3-2-4 flop brought more action, with ‘Isildur1’ laying out 22K and Haxton simply calling the bet. On the King turn, Blom decided to keep the pressure on, putting up 46K and Haxton just called again. Once a six hit the river, though, both men holstered their guns and checked, with Blom showing only an A-Q and Haxton turning up pocket deuces for the flopped set to take the pot.

The first elimination came about an hour into the action as Chance Kormuth left the event. After having his stack decimated by Daniel Negreanu, Kormuth was able to hang on for a bit, but he would be knocked out by Mike McDonald in eighteenth place. He would soon be followed by Tom Marchese, who met his demise at the hands of Blom.

Two of the shorter stacks left in the tournament, David ‘Doc’ Sands and Yevgeniy Timoshenko, battled it out, with one of the men not surviving the confrontation. After Timoshenko put in a raise and Sands defended his big blind, the J-7-7 brought out the fireworks.

After Sands checked his option, Timoshenko put in a 14K bet, which Sands check raised to 28K. Timoshenko made the three bet to 45K and, after some thought, Sands made his stand with the all-in move. Timoshenko made the call almost simultaneously and showed A-J for Jacks up; it wasn’t quite good enough, however, as Sands showed pocket Aces and, after a blank turn and river, knocked Timoshenko nearly to the felt. On the next hand, Sands would complete the job, knocking out Timoshenko and garnering some much needed chips.

With fifteen players remaining, Haxton was still in the lead, but he faced a new challenger. Scott Seiver used the early action to become a contender for the crown, while Blom maintained the pace to provide some pressure.

Over the span of the next few hours, two gentlemen would change the top of the leaderboard. Negreanu continued his good run after his hand against Kormuth, taking a nice stack of chips off of McDonald to move up to nearly one million in chips. Meanwhile, defending PCA Main Event champion Galen Hall began to make some noise after a particularly fortunate hand.

After a pre-flop raise by Hall, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier made a stand for his final chips, which Hall called. He was way behind with his J-8 against ‘ElkY’s’ A-J, but a fortuitous flop and turn of 9-10-10-Q gave him a straight. After no king or eight came on the river, Grospellier was eliminated and Hall was up to nearly 650K in chips.

Negreanu was responsible for the departure of Erik Seidel, who seemed to win every High Roller event in 2011. After a raise from Negreanu, Seidel pushed his stack to the center of the felt with an A-J, finding an all too happy to call Negreanu sitting on pocket Queens. Seidel missed all of his outs to finish in twelfth place and push Negreanu to 1.5 million in chips.

The final table was determined in a stunning two hand fashion. Galen Hall took a big chunk of chips off of Haxton when he hit a baby flush with his 8-5 of hearts, and then the duo would battle it out on the very next hand. After Hall raised to 35K, Haxton popped him to 85K; Hall didn’t back down, instead three betting all in for Haxton’s stack. Haxton made the call, tabling a dominating A-K over Hall’s K-J, but immediately fell behind on the J-10-9 flop. With blanks on the turn and river, Hall jumped into the lead and Haxton was out of the tournament.

As the cards are getting set to fly in the Bahamas, here’s how the leaderboard shapes up:

1. Galen Hall, 1.748 million
2. Jonathan Duhamel, 1.336 million
3. Daniel Negreanu, 1.23 million
4. Viktor Blom, 1.228 million
5. Dan Shak, 1.199 million
6. Scott Seiver, 556,000
7. Mike McDonald, 360,000
8. Humberto Brenes, 343,000

With only five places paying in this Super High Roller event, three of these gentlemen will be walking away from their three days’ work with nothing to show for it. Hall seems to have the inside track, but Duhamel, Negreanu and Blom have been playing excellent poker. It sets up for an exciting final table at the Atlantis as the first champion is crowned for the 2012 tournament poker season.

In the first, Hall hit a flush on the turn with 8♥ 5♥ and got Haxton to call a big river bet and muck to take a big chunk of his stack.

Shortly after, they got it in with Haxton’s AK dominating Hall’s K-J but a jack on the flop changed everything and gave him the rest of Haxton’s stack.

With the chips exchanged, the dominating chip leader for most of the tournament was gone and Hall bagged up 1.7 million in chips to lead the eight players left heading to Day 3 tomorrow.

Hall, the reigning PCA main event champ, is now looking very good to make the money which starts at five players and a min-cash of roughly $250k.

First place in this event will pay roughly $1.2 million with second paying $850k.

Also looking good to make the money as Day 2 wrapped are Jonathan Duhamel and Daniel Negreanu, who finished the day in second and third respectively.

Duhamel didn’t bust anyone over the course of the day but still managed to double up, finishing with 1.33 million in chips.

Negreanu, the 2011 PCA $100k High Roller runner-up, busted Chance Kornuth and Erik Seidel and ultimately bagged up 1.23 million in chips.

Negreanu holds just a slight edge on both Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and Dan Shak, who both finished the day around 1.2 million in chips to sit fourth and fifth.

Rounding out the final eight are Scott Seiver, Mike ‘Timex” McDonald and Humberto Brenes.

Hitting the rail today were Erik Seidel (his A-J losing to Negreanu’s queens), Tom Marchese, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Jason Mercier, Will Molson, David "Doc" Sands and Sam Stein.

The final 8 and their chip counts heading into tomorrow, courtesy of the PokerStars blog:

1. Galen Hall 1,748,000

2. Jonathan Duhamel 1,336,000

3. Daniel Negreanu 1,230,000

4. Viktor Blom 1,228,000

5. Dan Shak 1,199,000

6. Scott Seiver 556,000

7. Mike McDonald 360,000

8. Humberto Brenes 343,000

Follow along with the live updates on the PokerStars blog starting at noon (EST) tomorrow.

It didn’t look like it would take almost two standard working days to get through the final table, as the first two eliminations came fairly quickly.  Scott Clements started the day as the extreme short stack, holding just 131,000 chips, while the next lowest stack was Joe Tehan’s 820,000.  After just a few hands, he moved all-in with Kc-9c and was called by Andrew Lichtenberger, holding Kd-Ts.  Clements looked like he was in business when he flopped a 9, but a 10 on the turn put him back in his place – the rail.

Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, was not someone who would have been expected to make an early exit, as he was the second stack heading into final table play with 1.279 million chips.  But he ran into trouble, first surrendering a half million chip pot to Klodnicki and then seeing his flopped top pair (9′s) fall to Lichtenberger’s pocket Kings.  He finally succumbed to Tehan, watching his Kh-6h fail to improve against Ah-3s.

After that, things slowed…and slowed…and slowed.  It took more than 100 hands for the next player, Joe Tehan, to be eliminated.  In his case, pocket 9′s giveth and pocket 9′s taketh away.  First, he used that hand to double-up versus Andrew Lichtenberger, but then Chris Klodnicki used it to knock him out, as it triumphed over Tehan’s Ad-7c.

The unique heads-up match was now set.  To determine the champ, Klodnicki and Lichtenberger were to square off in a best-of-three match.  For the first two, the players would begin with the chips they held at that point: Klodnicki with 3,470,000 and Lichtenberger with 1,526,000.  If the duel reached a third round, the players would have their stacks evened out.

It never reached a third round.

Lichtenberger made a run in the first match, grabbing the chip lead on more than one occasion.  But Klodnicki stayed the course and with a small edge in stacks, he used pocket Kings to take all of his opponent’s chips when Lichtenberger could find a fifth club after he flopped a flush draw with Jc-9c.

The second match was just about half the duration of the first, but at almost 70 hands, it was still plenty long.  This time, Lichtenberger was unable to grow his chip stack larger than Klodnicki’s.  Finally, the two decided it was time for the moment of truth.  Raise after raise after raise pre-flop and somehow the two didn’t commit all their chips before the 8c-7d-3d flop.  That was good enough.  Klodnicki bet, Lichtenberger shoved, and Klodnicki called.  Lichtenberger was ahead with Ac-Kh against Klodnicki’s Ad-4d, but Klodnicki had outs.  He hit one of them – the 4c – on the turn and his pair held up on the river, giving him the Epic Poker title.

After the match, Chris Klodnicki admitted going to the mat with a weak ace wasn’t the wisest move, saying, sheepishly, “May have misplayed the last hand a little bit…”

“My goal was to stay patient.  It didn’t really work out…but it did work out.”

Every day PartyPoker will run a freeroll where the top 25 players get a ticket into the daily $2 sub-qualifier, which in turn qualifies players for the weekly $74 qualifier.

One player for every 10 in the $74 weekly receives a seat in the gigantic $680 Aussie Millions satellite that awards a seat in the 2012 Aussie Millions main event.

Every package is worth $16,000 and includes the $11,400 main event buy-in, eight nights’ accommodation at the Crown Promenade hotel and $2,500 in spending money.

Of course you can buy into any of those satellites directly if you want to jump to the front of the qualifying line. Either way, the 2012 Aussie Millions promises to be one of the biggest tournaments of the year.

Last year Australian poker vet David Gorr outlasted 721 players and beat Chris Moorman and Patrik Antonius at the final table to win $1.9 million at the 2011 Aussie Millions.

It’s a great time to sign up for an account at PartyPoker as the site is currently running $5,000 Bankroll Boosters every Sunday and the World Domination promo where first place walks away with $100k.

For more information be sure to check our PartyPoker review.

Day Three began innocently enough, with 25 players remaining in pursuit of the latest EPL Main Event at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas and Noah Schwartz holding down the chip lead. The tournament schedule, as set by EPL Tournament Director Matt Savage, called for the players to work their way down to the final twelve players before calling it a day. Coincidentally, those final twelve players would also be the only players who would take home a payday from the $2.36 million prize pool.

With that in mind, the short stacks looked to gain ground on the leaders. Within the first hour, Randal Flowers had doubled up through Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, while Matt Graham was eliminated at the hands of Brock Parker. In what would turn out to be a huge hand in the early play – and would change the leaderboard – Schwartz, Hasan Habib and Scott Clements decided to square off.

After a raise from Schwartz and a three bet out of Clements, Habib decided to make his stand, pushing his chips into the center of the felt. After Schwartz moved all in over the top, Clements immediately made the call and tabled his pocket Aces. Habib, who was at risk, had a solid (but beaten) pocket Queens, while Schwartz held Big Slick. Although a King came on the turn, Clements’ Aces stood up, catapulting him to the top of the leaderboard, cutting a chunk out of Schwartz and eliminating Habib in 24th place.

By the time the players headed off for the first break, Yevgeny Timoshenko had joined Habib and Graham on the rail. Mizrachi kept moving up after his elimination of Graham, taking more chips from Parker when he rivered trip fours. Meanwhile, the final female professional in the field, Vanessa Rousso, continued to mount a drive for the championship by eliminating Eric Froehlich in 22nd place soon after the first break concluded.

Tehan, who started Day Three paly in sixth place, kept himself out of the limelight until about the midpoint of Friday’s play. In a blind fight, Tehan and Justin Smith decided to see a rainbow flop of K-Q-J, which ignited the action. Tehan made an 11K bet, only to get raised by Smith. After Tehan responded by moving all in, Smith made the call and tabled his K-Q for two pair. This wasn’t good enough, however, as Tehan dropped A-10 on the table for the Broadway straight. Looking for one of four outs to win the hand or a runner-runner Broadway to split the pot, Smith instead saw a measly four and seven on the turn and river to eliminate him in nineteenth and push Tehan over the 500K mark.

Over the next two hours, Marco Johnson, Flowers, Eric Baldwin and Parker would be eliminated in eighteenth through fifteenth places, respectively. While the players settled in for what they thought would be a slog on the bubble, it instead ended in a colossal hand that has the poker world buzzing.

After Faraz Jaka moved all in from under the gun, Rousso made an isolation move raise to 120,000 chips. After some deliberation, Tehan asked Rousso what she had left before pushing his chip leader’s stack into the center. Agonizing on the decision herself, Vanessa finally made the call of Joe’s raise and the threesome turned their cards.

Jaka’s pocket Aces were out in the for the main pot of roughly 190K, but Rousso held the edge in a monstrous side pot with her pocket Queens over Tehan’s unbelievably (you fill in the blank as to your thought) 4-2 off suit. A four came on the flop, keeping Jaka and Rousso in their respective leads, but a four on the turn stunned those in attendance. A river ten ended the action for the day, eliminating Jaka in fourteenth and Rousso as the understandably outraged bubble player in thirteenth.

Over Twitter, Jaka stated, “One of the most absurd hands ever…Tehan shoves 85bb with 4-2 and busts us both.” A stunned Rousso, for her part, simply stated, “Unbelievable. I just bubbled with QQ versus 2-4 off (suits dominating even).” After being quite talkative over Twitter during the day’s play (as he has been throughout the tournament), Tehan would justify his move by saying, “Thanks for all of the “donk” and “idiot” comments, folks. I never claimed to be the greatest. I’m just a recreational tourney player,” and has been silent since then.

That admittedly questionable move has put Tehan atop the leaderboard for Day Four, which starts at noon (Pacific Time) in the Palms, with an overwhelming lead. These men will attempt to knock Tehan off the top of the mountain:

1. Joe Tehan, 1.142 million
2. Michael Mizrachi, 627,500
3. Scott Clements, 496,000
4. Amit Makhija, 424,000
5. Hafiz Khan, 417,000
6. Jason Mercier, 394,500
7. Chris Klodnicki, 371,500
8. Andrew Lichtenberger, 298,500
9. David Williams, 242,500
10. Noah Schwartz, 225,000
11. Sorel Mizzi, 185,000
12. Amnon Filippi, 162,000

Action for Saturday’s Day Three may be as short (or even shorter) as Friday’s proceedings. The format calls for three, four handed tables for the players and the day will end once the final five players have been determined. On Sunday, the champion of this EPL Main Event will be determined, with the final two players engaging in a best two of three Heads Up match.

Thirteen players came back on Saturday afternoon to the Bellagio, prepared to work their way down to the traditional six handed WPT final table. 2010 World Series of Poker “November Nine” member Soi Nguyen held a nearly one million chip lead over his nearest competitor, Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger, while other formidable foes such as the United Kingdom’s James “Flushy” Dempsey, defending champion Antonio Esfandiari, Kyle Julius, Vanessa Selbst and David Williams lurked down the leaderboard. The potential existed, at the start of the day, for the creation of one of the most difficult final tables in WPT history.

The short stacks in the tournament – William Reynolds and Rudy Maarek – got the action going right off the bat on Saturday. Within moments of the opening bell, Reynolds had shoved his stack in against Esfandiari (but didn’t get a call), while Maarek doubled his stack through Vitor Coelho. Reynolds would not make it through his next shove, however, as he squared off against Coelho again.

After a raise from Reynolds, Coelho and Larry Wells called to see an A-K-9 flop, after which Reynolds fired a continuation bet, with Coelho calling and Wells dropping out. On the four turn, Reynolds kept up the pressure with another bet, but Coelho dropped his remaining chips in the center. Reynolds made the call, tabling A-J for top pair, but Coelho had him drawing dead with his flopped set of nines. After the unimportant river, Coelho moved up to just shy of one million chips, while Reynolds dropped to less than 200,000. On the next hand, Braden Hall would eliminate Reynolds in thirteenth place.

In a key hand, Selbst sent Julius to the rail in a hand where the chips went to the center pre-flop. After a six-bet all in by Julius, Selbst immediately made the call and tabled pocket Kings against Julius, who was making a move on the veteran pro with only a 7-5 of diamonds. The J-5-4 flop paired Julius and a turn six opened up some more outs for Julius, but a river ten would give the hand to Selbst. After a count of chips, Selbst held a scant 50K more, eliminating Julius’ run at this WPT championship in twelfth place and moving Selbst up over the two million mark.

Once Maarek was eliminated in eleventh place by Esfandiari, the final ten players gathered on a single table to work to the final six barely two hours into Saturday’s play. Nguyen still held a lead, but it had shrunk to just 500K over Selbst and 800K over Esfandiari. Over the next 122 hands (and seven hours), the leaderboard would blaze with lead changes as the contenders for the last WPT championship of 2010 were determined.

At some point during the unofficial final table, Selbst, Nguyen and Dempsey all held the lead, while David Williams (tenth, $47,767), Anthony Yeh (ninth, $55,728) and Braden Hall (eighth, $63,960) all fell away from the felt. With the final table bubble looming, the players took more than two hours to determine who would sit at the final table.

Lichtenberger made some moves up the leaderboard during this period, but it would be Nguyen who would maintain his Day Four chip lead to the final table by eliminating the “bubble boy.” In this case, it was Larry Wells, who went to battle after Nguyen raised pre-flop.

On an A-7-6 flop, Nguyen fired after raising pre-flop and Wells only called, as he did pre-flop. With a five on the turn, Wells once again simply called a 275K chip bet from Nguyen. On the Ace river, Nguyen decided to quit playing nice and moved his remaining stack to the center. Wells made the call, turning up an impressive A-J for trip Aces, but Nguyen would show a 9-8 of diamonds for a flopped open ended straight which got there on the turn. For his efforts, Larry Wells took home $91,544 for his seventh place finish.

At 4PM (Las Vegas time), the final six players will gather to determine a champion in this event:

Seat One: James Dempsey, 3.86 million
Seat Two: Vitor Coelho, 560,000
Seat Three: Antonio Esfandiari, 1.255 million
Seat Four: Andrew Lichtenberger, 3.605 million
Seat Five: Vanessa Selbst, 2.25 million
Seat Six: Soi Nguyen, 4.995 million

There’s something for every poker fan at this particular final table. Dempsey is looking for the second leg of poker’s “Triple Crown” by winning this tournament, while Esfandiari looks to make history by being the first player to be a repeat champion of a WPT event. Selbst, for her part, is looking to become the first female champion of an open WPT tournament, while Nguyen is looking for his first major title to add to his excellent WSOP performance in 2010. Lichtenberger is a highly respected online player looking for his first major title, while Coelho faces the arduous task of rising from the short stack to becoming a WPT champion.

The WPT website will be live streaming the tournament this afternoon on a thirty minute delay (the broadcast will begin at 4:30 Vegas time). Hosted by Tony “Bond_18” Dunst (who drove deep in this tournament) and other prominent pros, we should know this evening who will take home the final championship of the calendar year on the World Poker Tour.