Chris Oliver Has Massive Chip Lead Heading Into Final Table of 2011 PCA Main Event
Published on January 13th, 2011 7:31 pm EST
Chris Oliver will enter the final table of the 2011 PCA main event as the dominant chip leader when play resumes on Saturday afternoon. Oliver bulldozed through his competition on Thursday, accumulating nearly 20 million chips by the time that play had wrapped for the day. Oliver will have more than triple the chips of his next closest competitor (Galen Hall, 6.43 million) when the final table gets underway on Saturday.
At the end of Day 4, Ana Marquez and Chris Moneymaker were sitting at the top of the tournament leaderboard. By the end of Day 5, both players had been eliminated.
Ana Marquez, who was looking to become the first ever female to win the PCA main event, saw her chips dwindle throughout the day. She decided to make her final stand with pocket Eights, only to run into Chris Oliver's pocket Aces. The board ran out Qs-5s-Th-6d-Td and Marquez was eliminated in 10th place for $155,000.
Chris Moneymaker was looking to be in good shape to make the final table until a big hand against Galen Hall. With the board reading 6d-Th-9d-7d-4c and already about 2 million chips in the pot, Hall moved in for his last 1.75 million. After a bit of thought, Moneymaker decided to make the call, only to see Hall turn over pocket Tens for top set. Moneymaker was never able to recover from that setback and was eliminated in 11th place ($130,000) a few hours later. This was Chris Moneymaker's first six-figure "live" tournament cash since March of 2004.
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Here are the chip counts heading into the final table on Saturday:
Chris Oliver - 19,670,000
Galen Hall - 6,435,000
Sam Stein - 5,855,000
Mike Sowers - 3,685,000
Anton Ionel - 3,520,000
Max Weinberg - 3,350,000
Bolivar Palacios - 2,445,000
Philippe Plouffe - 1,555,000
All eight of the surviving players are guaranteed a minimum of $202,000 for making it to the final table. The eventual winner of the event will take home $2,300,000, while the runner-up will receive $1,800,000.
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Filed Under: Tournament Results
