There are just six players remaining out of 361 in the $5,000 buy-in World Poker Tour (WPT) bestbet Scramble Championship. One of them will take home $347,850 on Tuesday.
The tournament reached the money during Sunday's Day 2 session, and 18 made it through the day. Those players came back on Monday to play it down to the final table, which is scheduled to be livestreamed on the WPT's YouTube and Twitch channels.
History could be made at the final table. Eric Afriat will enter play with a sizable chip lead. If he holds that lead and wins the tournament, he will claim his fourth WPT title, which would tie him with Darren Elias for the record. Elias set the record in 2018 and has held it ever since.
| Place | Player | Chip Stack |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eric Afriat | 6,570,000 |
| 2 | Nick Funaro | 3,680,000 |
| 3 | Joe Jordan | 2,795,000 |
| 4 | Nick Yunis | 2,690,000 |
| 5 | Yunkyu Song | 1,335,000 |
| 6 | Dion Jagroo | 1,035,000 |
A few world-class poker pros reached the final 18, including 2015 world champion Joe McKeehen, who went out in 17th place for $16,800. World Poker Tour commentator Tony Dunst, a three-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, entered the third day with the smallest stack. But he still had 18 big blinds, plenty of chips to spin it up and win his second WPT title. That didn't happen, however, as he was eliminated one spot after McKeehen and also earned $16,800.
The tournament played deep on Day 3 with 90-minute levels and the average stack staying at 60 big blinds or above throughout the session. When the field hit 10 players, the oldest player remaining, Ray Leone, who is 82 years old, ran into a brutal situation with about 15 big blinds and pocket kings when his opponent, Yunkyu Song, turned over pocket aces.
Leone was out in 10th place, good for $33,500. The field then condensed to one table, and Vimal Reddy would be next to go out, but didn't receive a pay-jump as he earned the same payout as Leone.
Francis Anderson, who has over $3.2 million in live tournament cashes, according to The Hendon Mob, busted in eighth place for $42,500, which left the tournament on the final table bubble. The day nearly came to an end when Song and Afriat played a monster 70-big blind pot, with the latter scooping the pot with an over pair against an unknown hand.
That left Song, who won the WPT Prime Playground title last month, down to just 17 big blinds. But he didn't go away quietly and shook off the loss to battle back. Not only that, he'd make the final table when, two hours after Anderson busted, T.K. Miles moved his final nine big blinds in the middle preflop with A♣Q♠and lost to Jordan's K♠J♠when the board ran out K♦4♥7♠8♣Q♣.
Miles earned $55,000 for seventh place and the session came to an end. The six remaining players all have a guaranteed minimum payout of $71,000, but the top four will earn a six-figure cash.
Afriat will have the chip lead with 6,570,000 and blinds at 25,000/50,000 at the start of the final table, but it won't be a cakewalk to a fourth WPT title. The Canadian will be facing some tough competition, and his opponents all have plenty of chips to go to battle. That includes Nick Funaro, brother of poker pro Frank Funaro.
Funaro, who won a Borgata Winter Poker Open event in January for over $400,000, isn't too far off Afriat's pace at 3,680,000, good for 74 big blinds. All six players have over 20 big blinds, which means the final table should be highly competitive.
Play resumes at 2 p.m. ET in Jacksonville on Tuesday.
Eric Afriat Chasing World Poker Tour History
*Images courtesy of Katerina Lukina/World Poker Tour.
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