Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic

Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic Day 4

Dec. 17th 2009

The Doyle’s Room family of players was down to only one representative by the time day 4 started at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio.  Amit “Amak316″ Makhija came into the day 22nd of the remaining 36 players and was able to make his way inside the money but lost a coinflip soon after and was eliminated from the tournament short of a final table appearance.
The top 27 players made the money and after Hasan Habib was eliminated in 28th place it wasn’t long before Amit had his chips in the middle.  After the money bubble he only had 280k chips with the blinds at 6,000 / 12,000 and a 1k ante and when he picked up AJ suited and was faced with a raise to 30k he moved all in.  Matt Waxman called with his pocket sevens and in a standard race situation the smaller pair held up to eliminate Makhija in 26th place for a payout of $28,569.

Even with all of Doyle’s group of players eliminated play rolled on in the tournament named after Brunson.  A full five levels of play brought the field down to the final 16 players, led by Curt Kohlberg who is coming off a recent WPT final table at Foxwoods where he finished in 5th place.  Going into the playdown day of the Five Diamond Kohlberg has 2,856,000 chips and leads the charge towards a second consecutive WPT main event final table.  Play will continue tomorrow until the 16 are trimmed to only 6 who will then return the next day to play it out for the title and nearly $1.5 million first prize on the WPT TV set.

Final 16 Chip Counts:
1.) Curt Kohlberg – 2,856,000
2.) Faraz Jaka – 2,768,000
3.) Danny Alaei – 2,422,000
4.) John Juanda – 1,851,000
5.) Chad Batista – 1,550,000
6.) Joe Cassidy – 1,445,000
7.) Josh Arieh – 1,067,000
8.) Shawn Buchanan – 1,007,000
9.) Steve O’Dwyer – 826,000
10.) Carter King – 805,000
11.) Eric Hershler – 796,000
12.) Mike Sowers – 661,000
13.) Matt Waxman – 641,000
14.) Joe Elpayaa – 446,000
15.) Scotty Nguyen – 339,000
16.) Lee Salem – 275,000