WPT Championship Day 4 – Paul Lee Takes Lead; Hellmuth Down But Not Out

After the fourth day of play (five, actually, since the “first” day was split into two flights) at the World Poker Tour Championship, the field has been narrowed to three tables.  Twenty-seven players vying for the almost $4 million first place prize.  And now, with only two days remaining in a record-setting tournament, Paul Lee leads the way as the only player with more than 3 million chips.  At 3.6 million, Lee is more than 600,000 chips ahead of the second place competitor, Kirk Morrison. 

In the meantime, the chip leader going into yesterday, the all-world Phil Hellmuth took some big hits and lost more than half of his stack.  Two double-ups of his opponents took large chunks out of Hellmuth’s pile of chips.  First, after a flop of K-5-4, Hellmuth called an all-in by David Levi.  Hellmuth had made top pair with K-Q, but Levi had him outkicked with A-K.  There went around 600,000 chips.  A few minutes later, Hellmuth and Sorel Mizzi engaged in some serious betting on the flop and turn, seeing a board of A-9-4-A-J by the river.  Mizzi pushed all-in and Hellmuth made the quick call, but Mizzi’s 9-9 and resulting full house elicited a muck by Hellmuth.  At that point, Hellmuth was down to 1 million chips. 

The tournament will narrow down to the final six for the television table on Thursday at the Bellagio.  The first six players eliminated Thursday will win almost $93,000.  After that, everyone is in at least six-figure territory. 

Day 4 Standings 

1. Paul Lee -- 3,601,000
2. Kirk Morrison -- 2,980,000
3. Juan Carlos Mortensen -- 2,429,000
4. Sorel Mizzi -- 2,256,000
5. Thomas Wahlroos -- 1,847,000
6. Ben Johnson -- 1,280,000
7. Tim Phan -- 1,273,000
8. Scott Fischman -- 1,268,000
9. David Levi -- 1,258,000
10. Guy Laliberte -- 1,232,000
11. Grant Lang -- 1,201,000
12. Mike Wattel -- 1,060,000
13. Loi Phan -- 1,007,000
14. David Baker -- 983,000
15. Tommy Vu -- 830,000
16. Can Kim Hua -- 760,000
17. Richard Anthony -- 755,000
18. Phil Hellmuth Jr. -- 738,000
19. Adeeb Harb -- 735,000
20. Paul Wasicka -- 581,000
21. Jake Minter -- 568,000
22. James Worth -- 556,000
23. Roland De Wolfe -- 460,000
24. Jimmy Tran -- 458,000
25. Robert Wazelle -- 284,000
26. Raymond Davis -- 274,000
27. Tom Pniak -- 270,000

Originally published 3:00 PM Thursday, April 26, 2007