Stephen Pierson from Brooklyn, New York only holds one cash on record. That cash was back in 2008 in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em event at the WSOP for over $27,000. He's already more than doubled his lifetime earnings with this one final-table appearance so he should have nothing to lose going in.
Pierson will enter the day in sixth position, holding just about half of the average chip stack.
Alexander Kravchenko comes into the final table as the official short stack, but if he can manage to get himself some chips, the rest of the table better look out.
Kravchenko holds nearly $3.4 million in career tournament winnings, 22 WSOP cashes, four WSOP final tables and one gold bracelet. He's also got numerous EPT and WPT cashes on his resume and is a member of Team PokerStars Pro, representing Russia.
Kravchenko's best year came in 2007, also the year he won his bracelet. He won the $1,500 Omaha Hi/Lo Split 8-or-Better event for over $228,000 and became the first Russian player to ever wrap a piece of gold WSOP jewelry around his wrist. That same year he also final tabled the Main Event to win over $1.85 million for his fourth-place finish. All together, Kravchenko banked nearly $2.3 million in 2007 alone.
He currently sits third on the all-time Russian money list, 16th on the European all-time money list and 7th on the money list for Europeans at the WSOP. This year, Kravchenko already has five WSOP cashes including one final table.
Trevor Uyesugi comes into the day as the second lowest of the stacks with nearly a third of the average stack. Uyesugi doesn't hold any live career tournament earnings, but that's all changing today as he's made the final table and already guaranteed $65,568 in prize money.
Uyesugi joins Miguel Proulx as the second Canadian at this final table, hailing from Lethbridge, Alberta, Cananda.
Ville Mattila enters the final table with only 490,000 in chips and will be one of the short stacks to start the day. Only two players sit lower than him on the leaderboard, but it only takes a couple of hands to turn that around.
Hailing from Finland, Mattila has four cashes on record and nearly $65,000 in career winnings. Mattila went on a run towards the end of 2009 which saw him cash in three events. Included in those cashes were a seventh place at the €1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event during the Unibet Open in and a sixth place in the €1,400 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event at the Betsson Estoril Live 2.
There wasn't much information to be found on Matthew Wheat, but we can tell you that this is unchartered territory of him. He's never made a WSOP final table, nor has he even cashed in a WSOP event. The only two scores we can find on Wheat are back in February of 2009 when he took 11th in a $300 No-Limit Hold'em Venetian Deep Stack event and 14th in the $1,060 No-Limit Hold'em Mega Stack Championship.
Wheat is a CardRunners Pro where he goes under the name "mindcirkus", regularly making PLO videos for the site.
Wheat comes into the day right in the middle of the pack, sitting in fifth position out of the nine remaining players. He does have a below-average stack, so he'll need to get some momentum going early. Making the final table for the first time you cash isn't a bad way to start things off for a WSOP career, but can Wheat walk away with the gold?
Canadian Miguel Proulx comes into this final table as the chip leader and will be looking to match Frank Kassela as a multiple bracelet winner at the 2010 WSOP. Just a couple weeks ago, Proulx bested a field of 596 runners to win the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event and capture his first gold bracelet. He's now looking to do it again and in the same version of the same game.
Prior to this year, Proulx only has one cash on his resume and it comes from the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Handed event back in 2007. He took home over $315,000 for his bracelet win and that makes up nearly all of his career tournament winnings.
Omaha guru? We'll just have to wait and see. One thing is for certain, Proulx has proved that he can win at this game before. With the chip lead in his corner, he's going to be one tough man to beat.
A few years ago, those who've heard of Daniel Alaei were only the ones immersed within the poker industry on a daily basis. Since then, Alaei has quietly made a bold name for himself with two WSOP gold bracelets and over $4.2 million in career tournament earnings.
Alaei holds 19 WSOP cashes and four final tables. His first bracelet was won back in 2006 in the $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball with Rebuys event. He banked over $430,000 for his win there. Three years later in 2009, Alaei claimed his second gold bracelet, taking down the $10,000 World Championship Omaha Hi/Lo 8-or-better event for $445,898. He also placed fourth in the $10,000 World Championship Limit Hold'em event that same year at the WSOP for just shy of $135,000.
Even despite all of that success, Alaei wasn't well known amongst the common poker fan until he popped off a big win at the $15,000 2009 Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event. He conquered a field there of 329 entrants and took down Josh Arieh heads up for nearly $1.5 million in prize money.
Alaei is a regular amongst the largest cash games in the world, but today it's all about tournament poker as he goes for his third piece of WSOP hardware.
Ludovic Lacay is one of the most well-known and elite French poker players. Lacay hails from Toulouse, France are holds over $1.5 million in career tournament winnings. This final table marks Lacay's first in a World Series of Poker event, but he is no stranger to playing for large sums of money.
Lacay burst onto the scene back in October of 2007 with a second-place finish in the WPT Spanish Championship in Barcelona. Lacay was runner up to Markus Lehmann and took home $414,747 for his finish. Within the same month, he finished eleventh at the €7,700 EPT Dublin Main Event.
It would be just about a year's time until he recorded another live cash from there. In October, November and December of 2008, Lacay cashed at three different events at EPT stops. Although the money wasn't as much as he banked the previous year, Lacay was just setting himself up for a massive 2009.
More than $900,000 was pocketed by Lacay in 2009 including three WSOP cashes. Highlighting those cashes was a finish of 16th place at the WSOP Main Event where Lacay earned over half a million dollars. A couple months later, Lacay's heater kept up as he scored third at WPT Marrakech for nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
This year, things have been quiet on the felt for the Frenchman. He's only recorded two cashes so far, but one of those was an eighth-place finish at the $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Heads Up Championship here at the 2010 Series. That score netted Lacay just shy of $95,000, which he'll be looking to top here.
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Three days of poker just wasn't enough for these guys, and nine of them have decided to come back today for one more session before we put the closing stamp on Event #55.
This $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship began on Thursday with an impressive 346 runners taking their seats. It was scheduled for three days, but the super-sized field prevented the Day 3 remainders from settling the score in a timely fashion. We've still got nine players left for this bonus session, and the deep stacks foreshadow one more potentially long day of poker.
We're posting some quick player bios for you as we speak, and you have about a half hour to get yourselves familiar with these nine men, one of whom will take home the penultimate bracelet of this 2010 WSOP. We're scheduled for a 4:00 p.m. start, and we'll be back as soon as there are some signs of activity over here in the Amazon Room.
Event #55: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship
Day 4 Started
