Chip Leader Chris Moneymaker heads World Poker Open Final Table

Poker News - August 11th, 2009 - Written by Bruce

When the World Poker Open Championship got under way on Sunday, 126 players all paid the $5,000 entry fee creating a very healthy prize pool. After the end of Day 2's action on Monday, the field was reduced to the final nine players with former WSOP Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker leading the way. The top 18 finishers made the money payouts for this tournament, and Moneymaker used the money bubble to his advantage accumulating a good portion of his chips during this time. After the day's action was complete, Moneymaker held a massive chip lead with 1,025,500 in chips. The second largest chip stack belongs to fellow PokerStars Pro Chad Brown, who will start the final table with 433,500 chips. Both Chad Brown and Chris Moneymaker are the two most prominent players left in the field, and ironically they have the two largest chip stacks as well. Whoever manages to win the tournament will earn $192,953 for their efforts, and a $10,000 seat in a World Poker Tour event in Biloxi, Mississippi next January.

Day 2 began on Sunday with 43 players remaining in the field. This meant that there only 25 eliminations to go until the prize money was reached. The remaining players all fought hard throughout the day's action trying to avoid leaving the tournament empty handed. There were some poker professionals who were not fortunate enough to survive Sunday's play as Vanessa "Lady Maverick" Rousso, Mike Sica, and Brent Roberts all came short of making the money. Late in the afternoon the nineteenth place finisher was finally eliminated. This left all of the remaining players in the money, and Chris Moneymaker with a huge chip lead over the field. Moneymaker earned a boat load of chips during the bubble play, and ended up with 775,000 chips when the bubble burst. This was more than half a million more than second place Chad Brown, who had 232,000 chips. After nearly twelve hours of play, the tenth place finisher was eliminated which meant the remaining nine players had all reached the coveted final table.

The short stack Paris Heard is sitting with only 26,000 chips, meaning he will need to make a move early when the final table gets underway. Jerry Milanos is the second shortest stack with 80,500 chips, Jeremey Gaubert is sitting on a stack of 107,500 chips, while Thomas Creel has a stack of 145,500 chips. The remaining three players all have larger stacks as Tommy Vedes will start the final table with 167,500 chips, Gil George has 237,000 chips, and Steve Hamontree has a healthy stack of 306,500 chips which puts him in third place. When the final table gets under way, the two chip leaders will be the players to watch as both Chris Moneymaker and Chad Brown will be looking to take home the title. Moneymaker has a million more chips than the shortest stack, and with a lead this big the former Main Event champion could be tough to beat.

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