PokerWorks

The final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker main event crept ever closer. Day 5 of the tournament began with only 189 players, and after seeing over 6500 of their fellow competitors eliminated in the past few days, only 180 were left to exit before the coveted final table was set. Each of the 189 survivors believed he or she deserved a seat there.

As always, shorter stacks were forced to move early in the day in an attempt to double up, but many didn’t have the success they sought. Eliminations did not come as fast as in previous days, but the beginning of the day saw a steady stream of players not able to stay in the game.

In the group of eliminations for the day, many notables were included, such as Ben Roberts, Hoyt Corkins, Chip Jett, and Jon Friedberg. Former poker writer/reporter Jeremiah Smith made a midday departure, despite having been the first player to hit the one million chip mark on Day 3. Also leaving the field were Allen Cunningham, Jeff Madsen, Shawn Sheikhan, EPT hostess Kara Scott, Alexander Kostritsyn, and Mark Vos.

The first players to be eliminated on Day 5 received $38,600 for their efforts, but as the day progressed, the money jumps did as well. And by the time Mark Vos became the last ousted player of the day, his payout was $77,200.

The most well-known players surviving the day were Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow, both of whom ended up at the ESPN featured table at the end of the day. Everyone expected fireworks, and though things started out in a fairly calm manner with few emotional outbursts, it ended quite differently.

According to the PokerNews.com reports, one of the very last hands of the day consisted of Hellmuth in a hand with Cristian Dragomir. The latter open-raised, Hellmuth reraised, and Dragomir called. The flop came 10-9-7 with two clubs, Hellmuth checked, but Dragomir raised, causing Hellmuth to fold A-K face-up. When Matusow chimed in for Dragomir to show the bluff, he did with 10-4 of diamonds. Hellmuth began calling his opponent an idiot and the worst player in history until finally the tournament director issued a warning and Dragomir noted that enough was enough. In the end, a decision was made to issue a one-orbit penalty to Hellmuth that will begin at the start of Day 6.

Speaking of which, Day 6 was scheduled to begin with the 79 players who made it through. Level 24 will be the first in play, and the word on the street is that Day 6 will consist of as many or as few levels as necessary to end with a field of 27 players.

The top ten of the final 79 players were as follows:

Mark Ketteringham 5,800,000
Nikolay Losev 4,058,000
Albert Kim 3,734,000
Tiffany Michelle 3,438,000
Dennis Phillips 3,436,000
Aaron Gordon 3,369,000
Jamal Kunbuz 3,327,000
Terry Lade 3,225,000
Jeremy Joseph 3,100,000
Alfredo Fernandez 3,053,000

Stay tuned for the Day 6 report to see who inches ever closer to the coveted WSOP main event final table.