December 11 2011, Brett Collson

The World Poker Tour will celebrate its 10th Anniversary with a bang on Sunday. The six-handed final table of the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic is loaded with heavy hitters that includes not only the event’s defending champion, but also a former November Niner and one of the world’s most accomplished female tournament players.

All eyes will be on Antonio Esfandiari when the televised final table commences Sunday evening. In last year’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Esfandiari bested a field of 438 players to win his second WPT crown and a prize of $870,000. He has a chance to do the unthinkable Sunday by going back-to-back at the Bellagio, an achievement that would tie him with Gus Hansen and Carlos Mortensen for the most titles (three) in the ten years of the World Poker Tour.

Esfandiari enters the final table fifth in chips with 1,255,000 and has quite a hill to climb in order to catch chip leader Soi Nguyen. The 2010 November Niner bagged 4,995,000 when play ended on Saturday, including the remaining chips of seventh-place finisher Larry Wells on the final table bubble.

According to the WPT Live Update Team, Nyugen min-raised preflop to 120,000 from under the gun and Wells called from middle position to see a flop of . Nguyen bet 130,000 and Wells called, and the turn brought the . Nguyen fired again, this time for 275,000, and Wells tossed in a call. The fell on the river and Nguyen moved all-in, having his opponent’s stack covered. Wells called and tabled for trip aces, but Nguyen revealed a straight with to win the pot and end play for the evening.

Others joining Wells on the rail Saturday were William Reynolds (13th place), Kyle Julius (12th), Rudy Maarek (11th), David Williams (10th), Anthony Yeh (ninth) and Braden Hall (eighth).

Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst will be looking to block Esfandiari’s road to history at Sunday’s final table. Selbst, who is fourth in chips entering Sunday’s final table, is the last player to repeat in a major live tournament; in April, she defended her title at the PokerStars North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun Main Event. Selbst also has major titles at the World Series of Poker and the Partouche Poker Tour, and can move closer to Kathy Liebert for No. 1 on the women’s all-time earnings list with a victory at Bellagio. Selbst currently stands roughly $1.4 million behind Liebert. A win on Sunday would net her more than $820,000.

Rounding out the Sunday’s final table lineup are Andrew Lichtenberger, James Dempsey and Vitor Coelho. Lichtenberger, 24, finished eighth in this event last year and boasts more than $1.4 million in live tournament earnings in his short career. Dempsey is a rising star in the game, having won his first WSOP bracelet in 2010 and making appearances on several televised poker programs in the U.K. in 2011.

Coelho won’t stand out among his famous tablemates but has found some recent success on the WPT. Last month, Coelho took fourth place at the WPT Jacksonville Main Event for $70,000, his biggest cash since winning a WPT prelim at Borgata in 2009 for $107,100.

Sunday’s final table kicks off at 1600 PST (0000 GMT) and will be live streamed with hole cards on a 30-minute delay by WorldPokerTour.com. Commentary will be provided by Tony Dunst, David Sands and Dan O’Brien.

Here’s a look at the seat draw for the final table:

WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Table Seat Draw

In addition to the WPT Five Diamond event, the Bellagio $100,000 Super High Roller tournament came to a close Saturday with a familiar face landing back in the winner’s circle. After coming to a three-way deal with David Sands and Isaac Haxton, Jason Mercier went on to beat Sands heads-up for the title and a $25,000 seat to the WPT World Championship in May.

According to Mercier’s post on Twitter, his share of the chop was worth $683,767, while Sands collected $619,000 and Haxton earned $582,000. The 29-player field drew big names like Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Ben Lamb and Justin Bonomo to generate a prize pool of nearly $3 million.

*Photo courtesy of the World Poker Tour.

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Follow Brett Collson on Twitter – @brettcollson

December 10 2011, Eric Ramsey

Saturday was the final day of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Prague, and the requisite eight players returned to the felt to play down to a champion. What looked like a short day turned into a bit of a long one, but in the end, Martin Finger was the man left standing alone with all the chips in play, the Shamballa bracelet, and the shiny EPT trophy.

The first order of business on Day 5 was to knock out the last 31 minutes of the previous level left over from the night before. During those opening orbits, Mads Wissing was sent to the rail as the first elimination of the day. Wissing was very short on chips entering the final table, and he made a late-position shove with . He couldn’t sneak the raise through. Guillem Usero woke up with right next door, and Wissing could not catch up on the board. He was sent off in eighth place with a consolation prize of “66,700.

Andreas Wiese lost most of his stack in the second level of the day after losing a race against Usero. Wiese was unable to fully recover after his run in with Usero. After doubling his short stack once, Wiese got his money in with against Martin Finger’s with a chance at another double. It didn’t go well for him, though, and the dealer ran out a board to eliminate the Wiese in seventh place (“90,000).

When the table was reduced to six, Ari “BodogAri” Engel was riding the shortest stack, and he was the next to fall. Like Wiese before him, Engel did manage one crucial double before dropping down to zero just a few minutes later. It was that was responsible for his demise, and Finger’s was never in trouble on the board. Engel, who’s made more than $2.5 million online, notched his largest live cash (“125,000) in his first EPT event.

Denys Drobyna made it through the next break before being relieved of his last 15 big blinds. The ace-rags were going around for the short stacks, and looked plenty good enough for Drobyna to go with. Unfortunately for him, David Boyaciyan woke up with right next to him, and Drobyna never had a chance. The board ran , and Drobyna was forced to settle for “160,000 and a fifth-place finish.

Usero had an up-and-down day, but he was mostly trending in the right direction until his elimination in fourth place. He had been stagnant around 20 big blinds when he pushed in with . Ace-rag strikes again. Finger woke up with . Usero managed to find a flush draw on a suited flop, but the turn and river bricked to seal his fate. Fourth place was worth “205,000, though, the first career six-figure score for the 21-year-old.

France’s Nicolas Levi might have been the odds-on favorite heading into the day with his second-place stack. During the first partial level of the day, though, Levi was crippled in a massive cooler against David Boyaciyan. On a flop, the two men got it all-in with more than a third of the chips in play. Levi had flopped bottom two with , but he was drawing practically dead when Boyaciyan snapped him off with .

Levi’s stack was reduced by about two-thirds, and he did well to keep his head above water until three-handed play. That’s as far as his run went. He shoved with on his final hand, and he even managed to hit a pair on the flop. Finger’s had a ton of outs, however, and the on the turn was enough to send Levi on his way with a “270,000 consolation prize.

That left Finger and Boyaciyan heads up for the trophy, and the latter was facing more than a 2:1 chip deficit. They decided to chop it up with Finger taking “620,000 and Boyaciyan “535,000, and they left the remaining “100,000 on the table for the champ. Usually a chop tends to hasten the conclusion of a tournament, but that was not the case for the two finalists.

Boyaciyan chipped away at his opponent with methodical timing, and Finger began to struggle to win pots. After hours of battling, the Boyaciyan actually pipped into the chip lead, but his advantage lasted only a few hands. In one of the biggest hands of the day, Finger made a big shove on the turn to fold his opponent and regain a commanding chip lead, and the war was over just as short time later.

On the last hand, Boyaciyan got his money in with pocket tens flipping against , and a pair of cowboys on the flop put the trophy in Finger’s hand. It’s the third victory for the Germans in this eighth season of the EPT, and it’s Martin Finger that they’re toasting to tonight.

2011 EPT Prague Results

That wraps up the coverage from Prague and the first half of the EPT8 Season. Next stop: Paradise. The tour is headed to the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and we’ll be forced to escape winter’s grasp and head down to the islands for ten days in the tropics. In the meantime, you should follow us on Twitter to keep up with bits of poker news from all the world around.

Follow Eric Ramsey on Twitter – @Eric_Ramsey