{"id":7563,"date":"2014-06-26T15:58:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T15:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2014\/06\/26\/eight-players-have-shot-at-1-5-million-on-final-day-of-poker-players-championship\/"},"modified":"2014-06-26T15:58:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T15:58:43","slug":"eight-players-have-shot-at-1-5-million-on-final-day-of-poker-players-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2014\/06\/26\/eight-players-have-shot-at-1-5-million-on-final-day-of-poker-players-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight players have shot at $1.5 million on final day of Poker Players Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"\"
\n\tPoker players compete in the $50,000 World Series of Poker\u2019s Players\u2019 Championship at the Rio Wednesday, June 25, 2014. The final table will begin on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

\tBy Case Keefer Las Vegas Sun
\n\tCombination of new and old standouts advance to $50,000 buy-in final table<\/p>\n

\tNote: Chip counts and bios of the final eight players available at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrank Kassela captivated the poker universe four years ago when he won $1.2 million, two bracelets and the World Series of Poker Player of the Year award in one summer.<\/p>\n

\tHe\u2019s been a fixture at the Rio ever since the 2010 tear, but has never sniffed the same level of success. Until now.<\/p>\n

\tThe Memphis businessman turned Las Vegas cardplayer, and potential politician, will go into the Poker Players Championship final table with a healthy stack of 2.5 million chips at 2 p.m. today.<\/p>\n

\tKassela sits in third place with a field of 102 entrants trimmed to eight vying for the $1.51 million first-place prize and the right to get their name etched into the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy.<\/p>\n

\tKassela\u2019s competition includes a pair who surely mixed it up with the late Reese, a legendary cash-game player who passed away shortly after winning the inaugural $50,000 buy-in event in 2006, in the high-stakes Bobby\u2019s Room at the Bellagio.<\/p>\n

\tAbe Mosseri, second in chips, and John Hennigan, fourth in chips, have been known regulars in some of the largest cash games in Las Vegas for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

\tMosseri specifically will draw much attention at the final table. A victory would yield Mosseri around $900,000 extra through side bets with other high-stakes professionals, according to a report on WSOP.com.<\/p>\n

\tMosseri didn\u2019t name anyone he booked wagers with but he regularly plays cash games with notorious prop bettors such as Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey and Eli Elezra.<\/p>\n

\tAll of the game\u2019s biggest names entered the tournament that features eight different poker variants, but most fizzled out over the previous four days of action. Mosseri and Hennigan will represent the old guard, but a couple of newcomers have proven just as formidable.<\/p>\n

\tBrandon Shack-Harris was a virtual unknown before this summer, but burst onto the scene with a victory in a pot-limit Omaha tournament worth $205,634 and now sits second in the WSOP Player of the Year race. Shack-Harris is the current chip leader with more than a quarter of the chips remaining in play.<\/p>\n

\tHardly anyone had heard of Melissa Burr before this summer either. But Burr has advanced to three final tables in the last month before the Poker Players Championship, where she became the first woman to ever finish in the money.<\/p>\n

\tWith less than 1 million chips, Burr will need some help to further her bid at history. Chun Lei Zhou, fifth in chips, is another unforeseen contender to make it this far. Zhou plays high-stakes cash game in Macau but comes in as one of the largest losers in the history of online poker with a deficit approaching $10 million, according to PokerNews.<\/p>\n

\tWSOP.com will stream the Poker Players Championship final table starting this afternoon, though the broadcast will not include hole cards.<\/p>\n

\tCheck below for a full listing of players remaining in the tournament along with their bios.<\/p>\n

\tSeat 1: Frank Kassela (2,507,000 million chips)<\/p>\n

\tAge: 46 From: Las Vegas<\/p>\n

\tWSOP bracelets: 2; Career tournament earnings: $2,425,393<\/p>\n

\tSeat 2: John Hennigan (1,878,000 chips)<\/p>\n

\tAge: 44 From: Philadelphia<\/p>\n

\tWSOP bracelets: 2; Career tournament earnings: $4,750,934<\/p>\n

\tSeat 3: Allen Kessler (439,000 chips)<\/p>\n

\tAge: 43 From: Las Vegas<\/p>\n

\tWSOP bracelets: 0; Career tournament earnings: $2,830,973<\/p>\n

\tSeat 4: Abe Mosseri (3,485,000 chips)<\/p>\n

\tAge: 40 From: New York<\/p>\n

\tWSOP bracelets: 1; Career tournament earnings: $1,149,500<\/p>\n

\tSeat 5: Chun Lei Zhou (1,389,000 chips)<\/p>\n

\tAge: Unknown Residence: Macau<\/p>\n

\tWSOP bracelets: 0; Career tournament earnings: $41,011<\/p>\n

\tSeat 6: Melissa Burr (661,000 chips)<\/p>\n

\tAge: 30 Residence: Mount Laurel, N.J.<\/p>\n

\tWSOP bracelets: 0; Career earnings: $151,368<\/p>\n

\tSeat 7: Brandon Shack-Harris (4,101,000 chips)<\/p>\n

\tAge: 33 Residence: Chicago<\/p>\n

\tWSOP bracelets: 1; Career earnings: $611,679<\/p>\n

\tSeat 8: Jesse Martin (840,000 chips)<\/p>\n

\tAge: 33 Residence: Shrewsbury, Mass.<\/p>\n

\tWSOP bracelets: 1; Career earnings: $1,396,380<\/p>\n

\n

Replies:<\/h3>\n

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Poker players compete in the $50,000 World Series of Poker\u2019s Players\u2019 Championship at the Rio Wednesday, June 25, 2014. The final table will begin on Thursday. By Case Keefer Las Vegas Sun Combination of new and old standouts advance to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}