WPT Championship: Handicapping The Final Table
The WPT Championship final table is set.
Yevgeniy Timoshenko. Early on Day 2 of the event, we asked the WPT team if Yevgeniy Timoshenko, a woman, was a chick, because of this picture. Later we did a post on him. Come to find out the dude is SOLID. Most think he's the real deal. Plus, he's got the Russian thing going for him. After Slumdog Millionaire, Vivek Rajkumar's run, and Anoop Desai's early front-runner status on American Idol, we thought it was the Year of the IndianTM. But then Anoop flamed out, killing that theory. In poker, it's clearly the Year of the RussianTM, even if said Russian actually lives in Seattle. Whatever. Timoshenko is big stacked at 13,300,000. He's got the mojo. We've got him listed at 1:1.
Christian Harder. Who? What? Harder is second overall in chips with 7,425,000. He's played solid all week. Third place feels right. 6:1 odds.
ElkY Grospellier. ElkY could grab WPT Player of the Year honors with a fourth place finish, which we think he'll do, because he'll finish second. No non-Russian is hotter in poker right now. EklY is currently third overall with 5,955,000. Odds of winning: 3:1.
Scotty Nguyen. Nobody has more primetime poker experience at this final table than Nguyen. He's played great poker all week. He's been focused. It would be no shocker for him to make a run at this title, despite having a ways to go to catch up. A win would actually make Scotty tournament poker's all-time money winner, so there's some extra incentive if he cares about that kind of thing (like a Phil Hellmuth would, for example). Nguyen is fourth overall going into final table play with 3,275,000. Odds of winning: 5:1 just because he's Scotty Nguyen, baby.
Ran Azor: Who? What? Azor is fifth overall with 2,525,000. Odds of winning: 47:1.
Shannon Shorr: The common sentiment among most people upon hearing Shorr, the guy with the hot porn star sounding girl's name, made the final table has been, "Good for Shannon." The dude has been one of poker's most consistent performers and has been doing it the right way (except for this incident): building his bankroll on his own, no backers, still going to school, and just doing his thing. However, Shorr kind of has that "happy to be here" vibe. He's way short, with 1,130,000, although hopefully he'll cling on to a fifth place finish to milk just a little more TV time and maybe nab himself a deal with one of the online poker sites out there. Odds of winning: 10:1.
Final table play starts at 4pm PST.
Dear entities,
I want scotty to win. mostly to break jamie golds record. if it comes to bigger douchie behavior gold wins. also, in the fwiw department scottys 50k horse behavior was deplorable but didn't E-dawg sort of unleash the beast there?
Posted by: chenzilla | April 25, 2009 at 10:32 AM