The $3,800 buy-in WPT Choctaw event is now down to the final table. The remaining six players will shift the action from Durant, OK, to Las Vegas for the conclusion. That remaining action will take place on May 26.
The real money poker action will take place at the HyperX Sports Arena at the Luxor Hotel and Casino. A few well-known pros will be among the players vying for the $486,000 prize going to the winner, including Kristen Foxen and Chance Kornuth.
Foxen and her husband, Alex, both survived until Day 3, but only Kristen remains in the running for the championship. She comes to the final table with a short stack of 2,175,000 chips.
Alex Foxen, the GPI Player of the Year in 2018 and 2019, finished in 21st place and took home $21,000 after losing his huge stack to Kornuth, whose 10-10 held up against Alex’s A-Q.
Mackey Seeks Rare Second Win
Of the thousands of players that have entered events on the World Poker Tour in the last two decades, only one has repeated as champion of the same Main Tour event.
Three-time WPT season Player of the Year Brian Altman was champion of the Lucky Hearts Poker Open in 2014 and 2020. There’s a slim chance someone could duplicate that feat in Las Vegas next week.
James Mackey is the only former champion remaining in this year’s event. Mackey won this event back in 2016, taking home a $666,758 payday after beating out 1,066 entrants.
He entered Day 3 of this year’s tournament second in chips and eventually moved into the lead halfway through the day. Unfortunately, he suffered a few tough losses later and ended fourth with 5,050,000 chips going to the final table.
This is the third WPT final table of Mackey’s career, and he has more than $4.2 million in live tournament cashes. He’s also the holder of a World Series of Poker bracelet from 2007.
Not Much Separating Top Chip Leaders
Kornuth has played the last two days consistently in building up his stack while remaining near the top of the leaderboard. He enters the final table with 9,025,000 in chips. He would have been the chip leader by a considerable margin if Anees Puri didn’t double up against him in one of the last hands of the night on Monday.
Puri’s night ended after losing his last two big blinds to Mackey and just missed the final table to finish in seventh for a prize of $78,000.
The six players at the final table are each guaranteed at least $101,000. James Hundt is currently third in the chip count with 9 million, and Steve Buckner is fifth with 4.7 million.
Ray Qartomy is the current chip leader with 9,400,000 and seeks his first win on the tour. He has $919,000 in career earnings on the WPT Tour, with 16 cashes and four final table appearances. Qartomy’s highest finish was the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble in 2018, where he placed fourth and took home $95,684.