We started with 48 players on Sunday and after seven extremely tough and entertaining heats we are down to the final seven. battling it out for the $250,000 top prize and the title of World Open V champion are six world renowned pros and our one sole online qualifier Jan Veit.
Play got underway at 15:30 GMT, quite early for a final table but the schedule has had to be adapted to accommodate the new triple stacked format that gives players a whopping 300,000 starting chip count. As with the previous heats the action was few and far between at the low level blinds. But as the blinds began to increase the players were forced to start pushing the chips around.
With the combustible Luke Schwartz at the table Phil Laak and Andy Black were keen to tease the young londoner but Luke took it all in his stride determined not to let the experienced pros knock his concentration. Schwartz was by far the most aggrerssive player at the table, consistently picking his spot to make pre-flop raises and slowly amass chips.
Online qualifier Jan Veit also made a strong showing in the early stages with his solid, tight style of play. The most entertaining player at the table was Andy Black not happy with throwing digs at Luke he frequently made big bluffs against the unusually timid Jennifer Tilly as his chip stack vaulted up and down.
After the first break the play all of a sudden began to excite the large crowd that has descended on the Palm Beach Casino. We saw all in after all in but the end result was chips being shared between the players as no one could deliver that crucial first knockout blow. Andy Black had continued his cavalier style of play but after a few successes against Tilly his risky strategy began to count against him.
Soon he became the short stack, just waiting for the right moment to push all in. With KJ in the hole Black made the move but Phil Laak looked down at A7 and that was enough to make the call. The Ace hit on the flop and that was the end of the tournament for the former Main Event finalist.
Next to go was Mike Sexton, facing up to the inevitable all in as the short stack Mike pushed with eights only to be called be Jan Veit’s pair of kings. It’s goodnight the the PartyPoker representative but it hasn’t been a completely bad day for the poker legend (more on that later).
Soon after tournament director called for the next break. We are now five handed with Tilly, Laak, Bodo, Veit and Luke Schwartz left. Nobody has yet staked a claim to be the dominant force at the table so it’s still anybody’s game.
Keep up to date with the latter stages of the tournament at our live feed on twitter.
