WPT Season 5 Championship Day 4

Filed in archive Tournament News on April 27, 2007

Being in the tournament money is satisfactory for most poker players. You grind for several hours, or in the case of the World Poker Tour Season Five Championship taking place at the Belliago Hotel and Casino, you would be returning for your fourth day of work towards a monstrous pay off on your $25,000 buy in.

It was a day that saw Phil Hellmuth rant about a "bad beat" for nearly 20 minutes, and barely hold on to the chip lead he enjoyed on days two and three.

Unknown Paul Lee currently holds the lead with World Series of Poker Main Event champ Carlos Mortensen close behind in 3rd.

Here's the recap of the day from PokerNews.com's resident poker word surgeon Dr. Pauly:

Last Saturday the first of 639 players sat down at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas with one thing on their minds... to win the WPT Championship. Four days later, there are 54 players left to chase down that dream. They each sat down in the Fontana Room with hopes of advancing to day 5 en route to winning $4 million and the prestigious WPT Championships.

All eyes in the room were locked on Phil Hellmuth. The Poker Brat showed up on time and ready to defend his chiplead. He started with 1.8M in chips and drew one of the easiest tables in the tournament with several shortstacks sitting to his left. Hellmuth's stack was at least three times larger than the second largest stack at his table.

Hellmuth was aggressive and got involved in too many POTS which cost him the chiplead.

"Playing a lot of pots is a tricky thing. Sometimes it could cost you. Sometimes you can reap the benefits," Hellmuth said. "You always have to take a look at the table your at and see what you can and can't do. It's important to make it to the end of the day and not do anything too crazy."

Current chip count also provided by Pokernews:

End of Day 4 Chipcounts:

Paul Lee 3,601,000
Kirk Morrison 2,980,000
Carlos Mortensen 2,429,000
Sorel Mizzi 2,256,000
Thomas Wahlroos 1,847,000
Jake Minter 1,568,000
Benjamin Johnson 1,280,000
Tim Phan 1,273,000
Scott Fischman 1,268,000
David Levi 1,258,000
Guy Laliberte 1,232,000
Grant Lang 1,201,000
Mike Wattel 1,060,000
Loi Phan 1,007,000
David Baker 983000
Tommy Vu 830000
Can Kim Hua 760000
Richard Anthony 755000
Phil Hellmuth 738000
Adeeb Harb 735000
Paul Wasicka 581000
James "KrazyKanuck" Worth 556000
Roland de Wolfe 460000
Jimmy Tran 458000
Robert Wazelle 284000
Raymond Davis 274000
Tom Pniak 270000