Pocket aces worked well for chip leader Martin Finger earlier this afternoon — enabling him to knock out both Mustapha Kanit in eighth and then Jonathan Borenstein in seventh. Then came a hand in which Stefan Jedlicka picked up the rockets, although after an intriguing hand with Taylor Paur things didn’t go quite as well for him.
After raising to 80,000 from early position with A♠A♥ , Jedlicka watched the table fold around to Paur sitting on his right in the big blind who called with 7♠5♠. (We had the benefit of seeing the cards thanks to the delayed live stream on EPT Live.)
The flop came 10♣ 3♣ 6â™ , Paur checked, Jedlicka bet 90,000, then Paur check-raised to 230,000, sending Jedlicka into the tank for a while before he called. The turn brought the 7♦ to give Paur a pair, and both checked. Then after the 2â™ river, Paur checked, watched Jedlicka bet 275,000, then Paur pushed all in for 1.635 million — just over what Jedlicka had behind. After a long think, Jedlicka let his better pair of aces go.
A while later Paur was the one picking up Aâ™ A♥ , and while Jose Carlos Garcia gave him some resistance with 10♦ 7♦ , Paur would be the one to earn that pot after turning a set. Some time after that Kay was dealt A♣ A♥ and found himself tangling with Garcia as well with the latter holding 10â™ 8♥ , and they made it to the river, too, with Kay’s hand holding up.
Meanwhile as others played their aces Dimitar Danchev found himself searching for hands to play, and when he did he was often missing boards and and seeing others chip away at his stack.
They moved into Level 27 (25,000/50,000/5,000). Finger opened a pot from the hijack with K♦ 9♦ , Danchev shoved for 850,000 behind him with A♠8♠, and Finger folded.
Another couple of orbits went by, then Finger was opening from the cutoff to 100,000 and Danchev chose that moment to reraise all in with his last 950,000 from the button. It folded back to Finger who paused just a beat before calling, turning over Aâ™ 10♥ and seeing he had Danchev’s Q♣ 10♣ dominated.
The flop came A♣ 4â™ 6♦ to put Finger further ahead, although the J♥ turn did give Danchev straight hopes. The river was the 9â™ , however, and the 2013 PCA Main Event winner — his t-shirt reading “Go Home!” — did just that with a sixth-place finish worth $71,780.
Finger has scored all three knockouts so far at this final table, and now leads with nearly 6 million
1. Martin Finger — 5,925,000
2. Josh Kay — 3,300,000
3. Stefan Jedlicka — 2,440,000
4. Taylor Paur — 1,800,000
5. Jose Carlos Garcia — 980,000
Photography from LAPT8 Bahamas by Carlos Monti. Click here for live updates in Spanish, and here for live updates in Portuguese. And be sure to check out the cards-up final table coverage over at EPT Live.
Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.
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