Schulman and Negreanu head PCA High Roller final table

Schulman and Negreanu head PCA High Roller final table

Saturday, 8 January 2011

Nick Schulman leads the way going into the final table of the $100,000 PCA Super High Roller event after a rapid fire penultimate day in the Bahamas.

The 26-year-old American rocketed to the top of the leader board after winning a monstrous three-way pot with just 11 players remaining. Schulman opened up for 43,000, long time leader Tobias Renkenmeier moved all in for his remaining 270,000 chips before Vijay Rajkumar also shoved for around 900,000. Schulman called instantly with pocket aces, well ahead of the German's AJo and Rajkumar's pocket 10s. The aces held to leave Schulman in the driving seat for the $1.5m first prize.


Despite his big chip lead Schulman can expect some serious competition when the final table resumes later today, most notably from Daniel Negreanu who returns in second pace. It could have been even better for Kid Poker though who lost a big pot to Bryn Kenney just before the bubble burst. The chips went in with Kenney holding a set with Negreanu chasing both an open ended straight draw and a flush draw. The Canadian missed them all though but still has plenty of chips to make a decent run at the title.


Negreanu has even more incentive than usual to go deep in this even as a first or second place finish will see him overtake Phil Ivey at the head of the All Time Money List.


Joining Schulman, Negreanu, Kenney at the final table are Eugene Katchalov, Humberto Brenes, Sandor Demjan and Andrew Lichtenberger. Eagle eyed readers will notice that that's only seven and not eight players. The reason for the short handed final table was a double elimination on the very last hand of the day that saw Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates and James Obst both hit the rail.


The chip counts going into the final table are as follows:


Nick Schulman USA 2,990,000
Daniel Negreanu Canada Team PokerStars Pro 2,166,000
Eugene Katchalov USA 1,476,000
Bryn Kenney USA PokerStars Player 1,390,000
Humberto Brenes Costa Rica Team PokerStars Pro 758,000
Sandor Demjan Hungary 379,000
Andrew Lichtenberger USA 373,000


The top five finishers will make the money with the winner set to pocket a cool $1.5m. Join us later to see who has got 2011 off to a spectacular start.


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