DAY 5 OF THE WPT $25K CHAMPIONSHIP EVENT, THEN THERE WERE 17

The fifth day of the WPT $25,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Championship event finished this evening a few minutes before 8:00 pm when Tuan Le took out two players, Bo Sehlstedt and Mark Rose, to trim the field to seventeen. Both Bo and Mark received $75,465 in prize money. My long shot pick to win the event, Isabelle Mercier, collected $56,615 for her 28th place finish. Isabelle played a solid game, held her own with the guys and was the last surviving female so I expect to see her finishing in the money in many future tournaments.

The chip leader going into Saturday’s action is professional Phil Ivey with $3,884,000 in tournament chips followed closely by Tuan Le with $3,730,000. Hassan Habib is third in the count with $3,255,000, Rob Hollink has $1,584,000 placing him in the fourth spot and Chris Ferguson completes the top five with $1,411,000. Joe Beevers remains with $1,162,000, Juha Helppi has $493,000, Tony Ma starts Saturday on the short side with $287,000, Las Vegas pro David Slansky has even less at $200,000 and the short stack honors goes to Paul Testud. Friday’s chip leader, John Smith, is a newcomer to tournament play and lost his chips and his seat going out in the 20th position and collecting $75,485. The two remaining tables will begin on Saturday at noon in the Fontana Room at the Bellagio. The play will continue until the field is cut to six players. The final table will be played on the WPT television production set beginning at 4:00 pm on Sunday and will continue until one player has all of the chips and the Championship.

The Five-Star World Poker Classic is winding down to the big finish on Sunday. Many of the professionals will be headed for Lake Tahoe to play in the Harvey’s Lake Tahoe Poker Tournament at Harvey’s Resort Casino from April 26th to May 17th. The action will the return to Las Vegas for the Mirage Poker Showdown at the Mirage Resort on May 23-26th and is the final major tournament scheduled before the big one, The 2005 World Series of Poker, at the Rio Resort beginning June 3 and continuing daily through July 15th when the $10,000 Championship event final table is played to determine the poker champion of the world.

Remember to click over to Poker Player Newspaper for the complete results of the Five-Star tournament daily events. Spend some time browsing our 5-Star photo gallery to experience views of the action straight from the tournament floor. We are adding photos daily.