Look at the smile on the face of the man above you. That sums up, in picture form, what happened over the course of Day 6 at the WPT World Championship, as 16 players were cut down to just six, all of whom are now guaranteed over $1.2 million.
Now we'll show you how we got there.
16 players returned to Wynn Las Vegas today for one of the biggest days of poker of their lives.
The field was stacked as well, with Chris Moorman, Artur Martirosyan and Andrew Lichtenberger delivering the star power across the two remaining tables.
Ben Jacobs started as chip leader, but John Richards proclaimed himself as America's last hope and vowed to take it to the 'Euro robots'. That's fighting talk if you're Chris Moorman.
Pedal to the metal poker
We were expecting things to go slow, but the players didn't get the memo. We lost three players in the first 90-minute level of the day.
And it was America's superhero Richards who claimed the first scalp, taking out one of the 'Euro robots, as promised.
Then we saw Maxime Chilaud play a great hand.
He's really impressed us with his play this past week. He takes everything in his stride and has faith in his ability to outplay his opponents down the streets.
Proof was a hand against Carl Shaw. He called an 8.5 million four-bet with jacks and managed to get Shaw off the best hand. Shaw had A-J on a 9♣-5♠-A♣-K♠-Q♣ board. Chilaud was the new chip leader after this hand with 51.2 million.
Double misclick!
Meanwhile, the chips were confusing some of the players.
Moorman raised to 3.5x UTG with sixes before Jason Min called what he thought was a min-raise with 8-3.
Moorman got it through with a bet on the 9-K-2 flop.
"Mixing it up," laughed Moorman after the hand, admitting the misclick. "It worked a treat... It was actually perfect given my hand."
He then instantly put out 1.2 million for the big blind instead of 600k.
Henrique Zanetti was next out, missing out on a big pay jump. He had left himself with a sub-10bb stack in a hand against Carl Shaw. And it was Shaw who came back for the rest, in a fair fight, with nines vs A-K.
Moorman took out Paulius Vaitiekunas with his lucky dog on his lap. Vaitiekunas shipped UTG with A-9 and Moorman called in the big blind and held with A-K.
On the first break of the day, Min had taken the chip lead with a 51,100,000 stack. Richards had chipped up from 26.4 million to 42 million.
Unlucky for some
With 13 players left, someone was going to get really unlucky, and the poker gods picked Ade Olonoh. He had got short but found a brilliant spot to get back into it – aces vs the tens of Daniel Sepiol. It was all fine through the flop and turn...and then it wasn't. Oh, and Olonoh also missed out on a $90,000 pay jump. Sick game.
What you need is to put "Lucky" in your nickname. Andrew 'LuckyChewy' Lichtenberger won a monster against Min when he flopped a set of fives. Min shipped it with his flopped top pair, and LuckyChewy wasn't losing a 98% lock. He took the chip lead with that hand, with 56.2 million.
And Lichtenberger wasn't done. He came back for the rest of them almost immediately.
It was Min's A♠J♦️️ vs A♦️️Q♣, and Min flopped as good as he could without picking up a jack.
He picked up even more outs on the turn, with the board now reading T♠9♠8♦️️2♠. But it was too many outs, and the river bricked.
Lichtenberger was now up to 78.7 million and looked completely dialled in.
11 down to nine
Maxime Chilaud has played brilliantly this past week, but in the end a set-up took him out. Moorman raised on the button with aces. Chilaud disguised his hand by calling with A-T, only to see a ten-high flop. The money was always going in and, just like that, Moorman was up to 73.7 million.
Meanwhile, LuckyChewy was living up to his nickname.
First, he just won a pot with quad kings. Then he picked up aces shortly after and busted Richards after flopping a set. That took us down to the unofficial final table of nine, and it was set up for an incredible final six. Lichtenberger was way out in front, with Moorman in second and Artur Martirosyan still in.
Talking of Martirosyan, take a look at the hand below that happened just before the players were brought together on a single table. It's the hand of the tournament.
Your final six
Pay jumps were huge now—$155k between eighth and ninth—and play predictably slowed down. There was nothing for a full level, and then the fireworks came, with three eliminations in the space of 30 minutes getting us down to the TV final table way ahead of schedule.
Lichtenberger cracked Jacobs' kings when his A-Q spiked the flop. That gave him around 30% of the chips in play. Then he picked up aces and found Mark Mounsey with tens. He obviously flopped a set again. That gave him close to 40% of the chips in play.
The final elimination of the day went to Chris Moorman who shipped with 9-T in the small blind. Carl Shaw called with A-K and Moorman turned a straight on the 8-6-6-7-K board.
Each of the six players are now guaranteed $1,207,000, and that's already bested Moorman's previous best of just over $1 million. It's a ridiculously stacked final six—a line-up that's more in tune with a high-roller, not a huge $10k.
2023 WPT World Championship final table
Seat 1: Ben Heath - 36,700,000 (31bb)
Seat 2: Andrew Lichtenberger - 148,200,000 (124 bb)
Seat 3: Daniel Sepiol - 34,300,000 (29 bb)
Seat 4: Artur Martirosian - 29,400,000 (25bb)
Seat 5: Georgios Sotiropoulos - 46,200,000 (39bb)
Seat 6: Chris Moorman - 88,300,000 (74bb)
The final table starts at 4pm tomorrow. The live stream will be on a 30-minute delay, as will our live updates on Instant.
