WPT $25,000 Championship - Bellagio

WPT Championship Main Event
Day: 6
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Event Info

WPT $25,000 Championship - Bellagio

Final Results
Winner
Winning Hand
k♥j♥
Prize
$3,970,415
Event Info
Buy-in
$25,000
Prize Pool
$15,495,750
Entries
639
Level Info
Level
33
Blinds
800,000 / 1,600,000
Ante
300,000
Players Info - Day 6
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Paul Lee (11,828,000)

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[user22113]
The chipleader begins in Seat #5.

Paul Lee will always remember the 2007 Five Diamond Classic at Bellagio as the tournament where he got over the hump. With reported earnings of somewhere around $100,000 prior to this month, Lee will come away from the WPT Championship event tonight with at least $309,405 (sixth place money) today. Considering Lee's enormous chip lead, it might actually not be possible to finish as low as sixth place and we are sure his sights are set on the nearly $4M first prize.

This is Paul Lee's third final table at this year's Five Star Classic. Back on April 8th, he won the $2,000 no limit hold'em event and cashed for $206,795. A few days later he made the final table of the $5,000 no limit tournament and took home another $28K. Not a bad month up to that point but clearly today will be it's high point with a first prize of $3,970,415 looming.

With 11M+ chips, Paul Lee will sit down at the final table with over 36% of the chips in play.

Click here to view our video with Paul Lee.

Tags: Paul Lee

Mike Wattel (2,887,000)

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[user22113]
Mike Wattel will be in Seat #4.

Wattel plays out of Phoenix, Arizona and has a poker record that goes back over 12 years. His first big win was a WSOP bracelet in 1999 in Omaha 8 or better. Since then, Wattel has eight more WSOP final tables and over $600,000 in career earnings from playing poker part-time.

Of our final table six, Wattel started yesterday's field of 27 with the shortest stack. With just 1M, he was in a comfortable position early yesterday as the very short stacks (200K-400K) were making moves early. Wattel spent most of the day looking up the leaderboard at some huge chipstacks and fighting for his tournament life. He enters today with 2.8M, which puts him in 5th place.

Tags: Mike Wattel

Carlos Mortensen (6,501,000)

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[user22113]
Starting in Seat #3, Carlos Mortensen.

When Mortensen won the 2001 World Series of Poker Main Event, the common refrain went up: "Who is this guy, and where did he come from?" The second answer was Spain and the first is--a great poker player and a fantastic chip edifice builder.

Mortensen followed up his 2001 WSOP bracelet with another WSOP final table in 2002 and his second bracelet in 2003. In 2004, he took down a million dollar win at the WPT Doyle Brunson Championship at the Festa de Lago, here at Bellagio.

Now a resident of Las Vegas, Mortensen still plays an international schedule and returns often to Europe for major events. He begins today's final table solidly in second place with over 6.5M chips or 20% of the total in play.

Tags: Carlos Mortensen

Guy Laliberte (4,690,000)

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[user22113]
Guy Laliberte in Seat #2.

If there is an 'amateur' in the field today that would have to be Guy Laliberte. Laliberte is alternately from Montreal, Quebec and Beverly Hills, California. He has the distinction of having won his seat to the Five Star Event two years in a row through a Super Satellite tournament. Other than that, Laliberte shows no record on the poker database charts but we suspect from his play that he has been playing under a pseudonym in Canada or has honed his skills online.

His play for this entire tournament as been characterized by flashes of super aggression tempered with a great deal of patience. If Laliberte is not pushing his chips at you, he is quietly sitting and folding hands. Several players have made the mistake of underestimating his play; those players are not at this final table.

Laliberte begins today in a solid third chip position with Carlos Mortensen on his immediate left.

Tags: Guy Laliberte

Kirk Morrison (4,194,000)

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[user22113]
Kirk Morrison is in Seat #1 today.

Morrison lists Topeka, Kansas as home but we see that he is also considered a "native son" by New Zealanders. We will check this out today, but it appears Morrison does go back to the 'homeland' for annual events.

Morrison is another of a long list of established professional players perhaps known only to other players and the poker media. He made his first WSOP Final Table in 1994 and won a WSOP Stud bracelet in 1998. His most recent major final table was last month at the WPT event in Reno.

Morrison's career earnings are over $600K but today will be his biggest single cash.

Interestingly, the day before this event began last week, Morrison played in the Jennifer Harman SPCA Charity Event and won the $10,000 WSOP seat for the Main Event this summer; he is donating 5% of his winnings from that seat to the SPCA.

Click here to view our interview with Kirk Morrison.

Tags: Kirk Morrison

WPT Season 5 Winners

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[user22113]
Mirage Poker Showdown: Stan Weiss $1,294,755
Mandalay Bay Poker Championship: Joe Tehan $1,033,440
Grand Prix de Paris: Christian Grundtvig $907,066
Legends of Poker: Joe Pelton $1,577,17
Borgata Poker Open: Mark Newhouse $1,519,020
Festa Al Lago: Andreas Walnum $1,090,025
North American Poker Championship: Soren Turkewitsch $1,225,920
Foxwoods World Poker Finals: Nenad Medic $1,717,194
Bellagio Five Diamond Classic: Joe Hachem $2,182,075
PokerStars.net Caribbean Poker Adventure: Ryan Daut $1,535,255
World Poker Open: Bryan Summer $913,986
Borgata Poker Classic: John Hennigan $1,606,223
L.A. Poker Classic: Eric Hershler $2,429,970
WPT Celebrity Invitational: Adam Weinraub $125,000
Bay 101 Shooting Star: Ted Forrest $1,100,000
World Poker Challenge: JC Tran $683,473
Foxwoods Poker Classic: Raj Patel $1,298,405
WPT World Championship: ????

Warm Up Comedian

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[user22113]
Comedian Danny Smith was just introduced to warm up the crowd. His jokes? Not so funny. They should have Phil Hellmuth come out and tell bad beat stories. That would have been funnier.
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