WPT Championships -- Season 4
Bellagio
April 18 to April 24, 2005

Day 1A Officially 269 players came to the tables for Day 1A. Lots of names showed up like Foxwoods champion Victor Ramdin, Dan Harrington, Hoyt Corkins, David Grey, Gene Todd, Gavin Smith, Humberto Brenes, David Williams, Bill Edler, Erick Lindgren, Lyle Berman, Gabe Thaler, Dewey Tomko and many, many others. During the course of the event, 71 of them were eliminated by day's end.

The hand of the day went to Barry Greenstein as he held pocket A's which he handily checked on the flop. Board showed Ah Ac 9h Qs Jd. The other player who thought his boat would float held pocket J's. Other player bet 6,000 chips and Barry raised to 26,000 which the opponent called. He didn't know what hit him. Below are the top 6 players with chip counts for Day 1. Payout structure will be posted once it is released.

1. Simon Moussa -- 269,925 Chips
2. Gregory Fondacaro -- 260,150 Chips
3. Tony Bloom -- 244,575 Chips
4. Thanhdat Tran -- 215,550 Chips
5. Chip Jett -- 208,400 Chips
6. Brad Booth -- 199,150 Chips

Day 1B For the second half of Day 1 we have 309 players going at it. This makes a total of 605 players who entered the WPT championships. Seen at the Bellagio for Day 2 were Evelyn Ng, Don Mullis, John D�Agostino, Jennifer Harman, Doyle Brunson, Chau Giang, Patrik Antonius, Liz Lieu, Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak. First place will pay a whopping $3,760,165 and make 2 instant millionaires of 2nd and 3rd place finishers. Money will go to the top 100 players. The payout schedule for the final table will be as follows:

1. $3,760,165
2. $1,903,950
3. $1,025,205
4. $660,150
5. $440,100
6. $293,400

1. Patrik Antonius -- 225,000
2. Evelyn Ng -- 190,000
3. Don Mullis -- 185,000
4. Alex Jacob -- 180,000
5. Jennifer Harman -- 150,000
6. John D' Agostino -- 145,000

Day 2 The second day began with 473 players and action took off from the start with Jeff Shulman, Chris Bigler being eliminated within the first 30 min. Daniel Negreanu, Robert Mizrachi, Kenna James, Erik Seidel, Kathy Liebert, Huck Seed, Alan Goehring, Hoyt Corkins, Phil Ivey and John Gale were also busted out during today's play. At one table Mike Matusow and Phil Hellmuth Jr. went at it and Mike "the Mouth" was sent home by Phil Hellmuth Jr. (Personally, I would have paid money not to have been seated at that table.)

But in the poker world one person's loss is another person's gain. David Williams had a hot day raising his stack to 497,500 chips from yesterday's 66,050. Patrik Antonius also was on fire becoming chip leader. Also still in the running are Vinnie Vinh (391,800 chips), Doyle Brunson (165,000 chips), Evelyn Ng (235,300 chips), Freddy Deeb (354,500 chips), actor James Woods (341,700 chips), Surinder Sunar, Men "the Master" Nguyen, Juha Helppi and T.J. Cloutier. Come back as we will post Day 3 results tomorrow. Below are the top 6 players with chip counts:

1. Patrik Antonius -- 554,500 Chips
2. Gregory Fondacaro -- 540,400 Chips
3. David Williams -- 497,500 Chips
4. Erick Lindgren -- 472,300 Chips
5. Shawn Bucahanan -- 462,100 Chips
6. Brad Booth -- 443,200 Chips

Day 3 With 200 players beginning the day full of top professionals, this round was full of action as players like Patrik Antonius, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth Jr., Johnny Chan, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Freddy Deeb (who sent Mimi Tran home), David Williams (who eliminated T.J. Cloutier today) and James Van Alstyne were among those moving on to the next level.

Some who did not make it include Erick Lindgren, Jennifer Harman, Dustin Woolf, Steve Dannenmann, Paul Darden, Humberto Brenes, James Woods, Juha Helppi, John D'Agostino and Dan Harrington. By the time the dust settled, 71 will move on to Day 4. The next round will begin at noon tomorrow. Below are the top 6 players with chip counts:

1. Victor Ramdin -- 1,169,000
2. Gary Maresh -- 1,013,000
3. Freddie Deeb -- 1,005,000
4. Chad Brown -- 893,000
5. Roland DeWolfe -- 889,000
6. Evelyn Ng -- 873,000

Day 4 The goal is to continue play until there are 19 players left from the 71 that began this round. The idea of making $3,760,165 for becoming champion lit a fire under everyone as play continued to be aggressive. Some of those who did not make it to the next round were Doyle Brunson, 2004 WSOP runner-up David Williams, Evelyn Ng, Chip Jett, Amir Vahedi, Vinny Vihn, David Grey, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth Jr.

But a number of top pros and ladies had excellent days, one being James Van Alstyne who did well increasing his stack several times via Vanessa Rousso, even doubling up through the likes of Patrik Antonius at one point. And Erica Schoenberg won a pot of 740,000 through Cliff Josephy. But Vannessa Rousso came back by winning a big hand against Patrik Antonius vaulting her stack to 1,700,000 in one hand. Plus Annand "Victor" Ramdin who is fast becoming a hot star on the tournament circuit again makes the top 6 with a large chip stack. Tomorrow's play will begin at noon. Here are the top 6 players for Day 4:

1. James Van Alstyne -- 4,235,000 Chips
2. Roland De Wolfe -- 3,325,000 Chips
3. Carlos Zambrano -- 2,985,000 Chips
4. Victor Ramdin -- 2,685,000 Chips
5. Joe Bartholdi -- 2,350,000 Chips
6. Paul Wasicka -- 2,245,000 Chips

Day 5 From the 19 that started today, the final table for the WPT championships has been established. And as would be expected, play was more on the cautious side. Surinder Sunar ($117,165) was the first to go in 19th place, followed by Simon Moussa (117,165) in 18th, Patrik Antonius ($117,165) in 17th, Erica Schoenberg ($117,165) in 16th, Paul Wasicka ($146,460) in 15th and Gary Maresh (146,460) in 14th. Next was Valentino Morella ($146,460) in 13th and Cliff Josephy ($146,460) in 12th both taken out by Espen Saltnes. Then recent Foxwood champion Victor Ramdin ($146,460) left in 11th after losing a hand to Vanessa Rousso.

Carlos Zambrano ($175,750) was next to leave in 10th followed by Chad Brown ($205,040) in 9th and Espen Saltnes ($234,330) in 8th who gave an excellent performance this event. And now there are 7 players left with no one wanting to be the "television bubble boy", but unfortunately that title went to Vanessa Rousso ($263,625) who after an admirable performance this tournament left in 7th place. Here are the names for the final table with chip counts:

1. James Van Alstyne -- 8,070,000 Chips
2. Joe Bartholdi -- 7,135,000 Chips
3. Claus Nielson -- 5,875,000 Chips
4. David Matthew -- 5,765,000 Chips
5. Roland De Wolfe -- 1,860,000 Chips
6. Men "The Master" Nguyen -- 1,490,000 Chips

Day 6 -- Final Table A lot of drama and damage took place at the WPT championship final table. Here is what happened. Men "The Master" Nguyen with pocket 10's couldn't hold up to Claus Nielsen's pocket Q's and went out in 6th place. It got worse for James Van Alstyne. Within 1 1/2 hours he went from over 8 million in chips to 10,000. In the first 15 min he lost 1.4 million to Joe Bartholdi, then another 1.5 million to Roland De Wolfe and it went downhill from there. In less than two hours, yesterday's chip leader James Van Alstyne went out in 5th place. Next Bartholdi is on a rampage sending both Claus Nielsen in 4th and Roland de Wolfe in 3rd to the sidelines.

This brings the heads up match to just Joe Bartholdi and David Matthew. For the next hour and a half they played at a championship level but eventually there had to be a winner. Here is the final hand. David is on the button and limps in holding 10h 4h and Joe checks holding 9 5. Flop shows Ah 9c 8h giving David the flush draw and Joe a pair of nines. Joe checks and David bets 800,000. Joe raises to 2,800,000 and David goes all in with 7,300,000 and is called by Joe. Both show their hands and play continues with the turn card being an 2d and the river card a Ad giving Joe two pair and the WPT championship title! Congratulations to Joe Bartholdi!

1. Joe Bartholdi -- $3,760,165
2. David Matthew -- $1,903,950
3. Roland de Wolfe -- $1,025,205
4. Claus Nielsen -- $659,120
5. James Van Alstyne -- $439,375
6. Men "The Master" Nguyen -- $292,915