Faraz "The Toilet" Jaka Leads WPT Bellagio Cup V

Poker News - July 17, 2009 - Written by Bruce

After three days of play well known online poker pro Faraz "The Toilet" Jaka is the chip leader at the WPT Bellagio Cup V. When Day 3 started there were 92 players remaining in a field that began with 268 entrants. We are now down to 31 players remaining with the top 27 finishers placing in the money. The chip leader at the start of yesterday's Day 3 was Alex "traheho" Torelli who started the day with 590,000 in chips. Torelli was also the leader of Day 1 play. Current chip leader Jaka was right behind Torreli with the second largest chip stack going into Day 3 with 519,000 chips. Jaka had an amazing day yesterday and has taken a huge chip lead in this tournament with a stack of over 3.2 million chips. He has about 2 million more than the next closest opponent. Jaka finished the day yesterday with an amazing rush of cards and incredibly had four of a kind or quads twice in a row. As play winded down for the day, Jaka made quad kinds and then quad aces in back to back hands which pushed him to his current huge chip lead.

Day 4 will begin with plenty of tension in the poker room as the players are only 4 eliminations away from making the money. A few of of the biggest names in poker saw their tournament come to an end yesterday as Phil Hellmuth, Erick Lindgren, and Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier all were eliminated during Day 3. The chip leader after the first two days of play, Alex Torelli, is still in good shape sitting with 703,000 chips which is currently good for sixth place. The fourth place finisher at the 2007 WSOP Main Event, Alex Kravchenko, is also in contention with 681,000 chips which is good for the seventh largest stack. One of top cash game players in the world Justin "Boosted J" Smith is in eighth place currently with a chip stack of 602,000. Former WPT Player of the Year Jonathon Little is also in good shape sitting just outside of the top ten. A few of the well known players who are starting as some of the short stacks are Freedy Deeb, Hoyt Corkins, and Kevin "BelowAbove" Saul. Do not count them out though as all of them are capable of having a big Day 4 putting them right back into contention.

After the next four players are eliminated all of the 27 remaining players will take home at least $23,245. The fact that the players will begin Day 4 so close to the money bubble adds great anticipation for the remaining players. With such a talented field of players remaining there will be some great poker played as the players shoot for the final table. All 31 players left in the field are shooting for the first place prize of $1,187,670. The WPT Bellagio Cup V is sure to be filled with great intrigue as the remaining players return for today's action.