“Catfish” is No Fish; Bullard Leads WPO

It was a lightning quick Day 3 at the World Poker Open in Tunica Tuesday, as the field narrowed from 44 to 18 players. The plan was to play down to 27, but it took less than two levels to do so, so the players agreed that they would knock out one more table before calling it a night. And they got it done by dinner.

James “Catfish” Bullard leads the field going into Day 4 with almost one million chips. The next closest is Young Cho with stack $300,000 smaller than Bullard’s. But as we have seen from the first couple days, having a big lead after one day doesn’t mean much for the next.

Bullard made his big move late in the day, just a half hour before the chips were bagged. Heads-up with the overwhelming chip leader, Young Cho, Bullard moved all-in over the top of Cho’s turn bet with the board showing 9-8-5-J, two hearts, two diamonds. After some deep thought, Cho called with 6-3 of diamonds, for a flush draw and gut-shot straight draw. Bullard had 7-8 of clubs for a pair of 8’s and a gut-shot draw. The 5 on the river did nothing for either, and Bullard scooped an $860,000 pot.

While that was the key hand of the day, the “best” hand was shown by Daniel Negreanu. Also late in the afternoon, Negreanu was able to get Kido Pham to pay off his river bet while Negreanu held the immortal lock nuts. The board showed Ad-8c-2d-7c-6c and Negreanu held the 4-5 of clubs for a straight flush. He ended the day in fifth place.

The tournament will play down to the final six on Wednesday to setup the television final table.

Current Chip Counts

1. James Bullard -- 966,000
2. Young Cho -- 674,000
3. J.C. Tran -- 561,000
4. Bobby Thompson -- 466,000
5. Daniel Negreanu -- 446,000
6. Brian Gabrielle -- 323,000
7. Gary Kainer -- 300,000
8. Jeremy Tinsley -- 295,000
9. Bryan Sumner -- 290,000
10. Eddy Putrus -- 255,000
11. Amir Vahedi -- 236,000
12. Matt Russell -- 201,000
13. Adeeb Harb -- 194,000
14. John Racener -- 178,000
15. Don Mullis -- 168,000
16. Thang "Kido" Pham -- 166,000
17. Justin Marsh -- 109,000
18. Jolyne Thompson -- 72,000

Originally published 1:58 PM Wednesday, January 24, 2007