May 22 2012, Donnie Peters

The $25,000 World Poker Tour World Championship continued with play on Tuesday with Day 4 action. The clock was stopped at the end of Level 18 and play was halted for the night with just 19 players remaining. Leading the way was Hafiz Khan with 1.966 million in chips. Trailing Khan in second place was Marvin Rettenmaier with 1.87 million.

When the day began, 44 players returned to action. As things progressed, one by one, players started to hit the rail. Of those eliminated early on in the day were Joseph Elpayaa, Matt Waxman, David Chiu, David “Doc” Sands, Hoyt Corkins and JP Kelly. Falling after that were David Steicke in 27th place, Sam Trickett in 25th place and start-of-the-day chip leader Curt Kohlberg in 24th place.

Finishing in 23rd place was Nicolas Fraioli after he was sent home by Khan. According to the WPT Live Updates Team, Khan opened to 22,000 from under the gun during Level 17 with the blinds at 5,000/10,000/1,000. Play moved over to Fraioli and he shoved his last 66,000 into the middle. When action folded back to Khan, he made the call holding the . Fraioli tabled the . The flop, turn and river ran out to give Khan a winning flush and eliminate Fraioli.

The last two eliminations of the day belonged to two former WPT champions, Antonio Esfandiari (21st) and Jonathan Little (20th). Both of them were knocked out by Day 2 chip leader Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi.

It was reported by the WPT Live Updates Team that Mizrachi scored both knockouts in the last level of the day with the blinds at 6,000/12,000/2,000. Esfandiari was the shortest stack of the three and was all in with . Little had the second shortest stack and was all in with . Mizrachi held and covered both players. Although Mizrachi went into the three-way all-in battle with the worst of it, he finished with the best hand by catching a queen on the turn to win the pot. From there, Mizrachi went on to end the day with 1.168 million in chips.

Other players still remaining are Steve O’Dwyer, Barry Shulman, Tom McCormick and Farzad Bonyadi.

WPT World Championship Day 4 Top 10 Chip Counts

Although he has already been eliminated from this event, Will “The Thrill” Failla still has a sweat. As things currently stand, Failla leads the WPT Season X Player of the Year race with 2,050 points (see right). Four of the 19 remaining players still have a chance at overtaking Failla for the POY title and they are Joe Serock, Moon Kim, Matt Juttelstad and Rinat Bogdanov.

Serock has the best shot at overtaking Failla. All he needs to do is place 15th or better in this season-ending WPT Championship event to take the top spot. Currently, Serock sits in second place with 1,800 points. Kim must finish in fifth place or better to become number one while Juttelstad and Bogdanov must both win the event. This makes things a bit more interesting going into Day 5.

Speaking of Day 5, the action will kick off with the cards in the air at 1200 PDT (2000 BST) on Wednesday. The plan for the day is to once again play five 90-minute levels before calling it quits. The first bit of the day is set to be extremely tense as a cash and $40,266 in prize money lurks just one spot away. You can be sure to find the daily recap right here on PokerNews.

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*Lead photo courtesy of BJ Nemeth at WorldPokerTour.com

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January 09 2012, Mickey Doft

The 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event resumed on Monday with 544 players remaining from the starting field of 1,072. After six levels of play only 183 are still in the hunt to capture the $2,000,000 first-place prize. Day 2 belonged to one player – Faraz Jaka. He is well ahead of the pack and heads into Day 3 with a stack of 902,500.

Jaka began Day 2 with 129,500 in chips and quickly took over the top spot on the chip leaderboard. He took the lead during the first level of play Monday and had chipped up to about 700,000 by the time Chino Rheem was moved to his direct left. Rheem, with about 300,000 at the time, couldn’t have been given a worse seat, and less than two hours later, most of his chips were in Jaka’s stack. Jaka bet every step of the way on a board, culminating with a cool 100,000-chip bet after the river. Rheem called him down, but couldn’t beat Jaka’s .

Jaka finished the job shortly thereafter when Rheem put his last 15,000 in from under the gun with . With in the big blind, Jaka called and secured the elimination when the board came down . Not finished yet, Jaka added another 50,000 to his stack during the next hand by eliminating another player. He gave some back during the final level of play, but still holds quite the lead over second place. Joining him at the top of the counts are Cristian Folescu (555,500), Erik Cajelais (528,500), Connor Drinan (436,000), Alexander Kuzmin (425,500), and Phil D’Auteuil (412,500).

Sitting fourth in chips, Connor Drinan’s day started in a downward trend. He began the day with 142,700, but Drinan found himself with about 50,000 early on before scoring a crucial double elimination. With the board reading and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier already all-in, Drinan check-called a bet from Hoyt Corkins. When the hit the river, Drinan checked again and baited Corkins into shoving. Drinan called immediately and tabled , besting Corkins’ aces and Grospellier’s holdings to vault up the counts and remain near the top for the duration of Day 2.

Among those who failed to make it through the day were Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri, Humberto Brenes, Lex Veldhuis, Angel Guillen, Victor Ramdin, and Vanessa Selbst. Others who joined them on the rail included Christian Harder, Jon Turner, John Racener, Michael Mizrachi, Will Failla, and Kevin MacPhee.

Play is scheduled to pick up at 1200 EST (1700 GMT) Tuesday. Be sure to follow along right here as the PokerNews Live Reporting Team brings you all the action, eliminations, and drama from the 2012 PCA at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.

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