WSOP Day 5 preview: Ivey closes in on chip lead, 3 former champs still alive

[Steve Ruddock]

Phil Ivey continues to make his presence felt at the 2009 WSOP, this time in the Main Event. Ivey will enter Day 5 as the most notable name in the top 20 chip counts. Ivey’s 1,276,000 chips give him a slight edge over Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspieler: Matt Affleck is the current chip leader with 1,819,000 in chips.

The three remaining Main Event Champions represent an interesting cross section of poker: There is the 60-something Dan Harrington, who won the Main Event in 1995; the 40-something Joe Hachem, who took the title to Australia in 2005; and the 20-something Peter Eastagte, who became the youngest champion of all-time last year.

Other notable chip counts:

Blair Hinkle – 1,399,000
Theo Tran - 1,000,000
Ian Woodley – 864,000
Blair Rodman – 798,000
Nick Schulman - 746,000
Joe Serock – 700,000
Dan Harrington – 659,000
Lou Diamond Phillips – 607,000
Chris Bjorin – 546,000
Joe Sebock – 502,000
Antonio Esfandiari – 496,000
Joe Hachem – 490,000
Prahlad Friedman – 484,000
Kenny Tran – 415,000
Dennis Phillips – 414,000
David Benyamine – 405,000
Peter Eastgate – 397,000
Andy Black – 374,000
Sorel Mizzi – 305,000
Vitaly Lunkin – 268,000
Cole ‘CTS’ South – 257,000
Rolf Slotboom – 229,000
Bobby Baldwin – 219,000
JC Tran – 163,000

Photos courtesy of pokerpages.com

[KRE8R]

This is shaping up to be a good one.

[piv]

man harrington needs to be wearing an oxygen mask and sitting in a wheelchair

[BigNelly]

Does anyone know how we can watch this live. I have been searching and apparently there is a link on the PKR site but this does not show anything.

Cheers