Seat 4: Anthony Merulla
Go big or go home seems to be Anthony Merulla's preferred approach to tournament poker.
He has a relatively paltry (for a World Poker Tour final tablist) 13 recorded live tournament cashes, but he's made them count to the tune of $530,658. Two big chunks account for the vast majority of that total: a fourth-place finish in a $5,000 six-max event at the World Series of Poker in 2011 for $208,281 and a third-place finish at this very tournament in 2009 for $236,452.
Everyone needs a little luck to make a deep run in a huge tournament like this, and Merulla's came in the form of a three-way preflop all in on Day 3. He managed to spike a set with his queens against the aces and ace-king of his two opponents. Another key pot for Merulla occurred when he won a big flip with jacks against the ace-king of Matthew "mattemenz" Mendez to increase his stack and send a dangerous opponent to the rail.
Despite dragging those huge pots, from what we've seen, Merulla seems content to mostly play smaller pots. That approach may be tough to pull off with another post-flop wizard, David Paredes, on his left, and the aggressive Farid Jattin in the big blind when Merulla's on the button, at least while the tournament is six-handed. We'll see if Merulla decides to switch gears, or if he decides to try to impose his normal game on his opponents.