Matt Hawrilenko Leads WSOP Europe Main Event Entering Day 4

Two days of play remain in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe Main Event and, perched atop the leaderboard entering Wednesday’s battle is Matt Hawrilenko, a 27 year-old poker pro who goes by “Hoss-TBF” online.

Hawrilenko took down a $1 million first place prize for winning Event #56 of the 2009 WSOP in Las Vegas, a $5,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. He triumphed over a final table that included Matt Waxman and Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka and owns 701,500 chips in London, the only player to eclipse the 700,000-chip plateau. Hawrilenko already has three WSOP final tables in 2009 and has quickly become one of the most feared names on the circuit. Hot on his heels is CardPlayer Magazine founder Barry Shulman, father of WSOP November Nine member Jeff Shulman. The latter was featured heavily in last night’s coverage of the 2009 Main Event on ESPN and was seated at the feature table.

Speaking of the November Nine, two of its members remain in the hunt to repeat Ivan Demidov’s miraculous feat last year. In 2008, Demidov made the final table of both the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas and the WSOP Europe Main Event in London. Antoine Saout, who hails from France, sits with the 24th largest chip stack (202,000), while England’s James Akenhead boasts the 30th biggest tally (153,500). The nine final table members in Las Vegas will take to felts on November 7th, when they’ll return to play down to two. Then, the action resumes late in the day on November 9th to determine a winner. The tournament’s finale will air on cable station ESPN on Tuesday, November 10th.

Also still in the hunt is Doyle Brunson, who was sixth in chips entering play on Tuesday. Brunson has trailed off a bit to own the 21st largest stack out of 36 remaining players. He owns 10 WSOP bracelets, tied with Johnny Chan for second most overall; the duo trails Ultimate Bet pro Phil Hellmuth’s 11. Brunson has been shut out of the winner’s circle since 2005 and will look to make a run entering the play down day in the WSOP Europe Main Event. Brunson has 246,500 chips and joining him at Table 1 today are Jason Mercier, 2009 Poker Hall of Fame nominee Men “The Master” Nguyen, and Shulman, among others.

Here are the Top 10 chip stacks remaining in the 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event:

1. Matt Hawrilenko – 701,500
2. Steven Fung – 648,000
3. Praz Bassi – 471,000
4. Arnauld Mattern – 469,500
5. Barry Shulman – 452,500
6. John Kabbaj – 448,500
7. Peter Gould – 409,000
8. Shandoi Demjan – 367,500
9. Keith Hawkins – 330,500
10. Eric Liu – 330,500

The rest of the field is as follows:

11. Ram Vaswarni – 322,000
12. Daniel Negreanu – 314,500
13. Chris Bjorin – 306,500
14. Thomas Bichon – 305,000
15. Yevgeniy Timoshenko – 285,000
16. Saar Wilf – 273,500
17. Teddy Sheringham – 272,500
18. Andre Akkari – 272,000
19. Tommy Pavlicek – 266,500
20. Anthony Cousineau – 257,000
21. Doyle Brunson – 246,500
22. Christian Harder – 243,000
23. Craig Burgess – 232,500
24. Antoine Saout – 202,000
25. Michael Fasco – 200,500
26. Elizabeth Lieu – 193,500
27. Markus Ristola – 157,000
28. Konstantin Buecherl – 156,500
29. Steve Zolotow – 156,500
30. James Akenhead – 153,500
31. Christian Kruel – 140,000
32. Jason Mercier – 125,000
33. Oyvind Riisem – 113,500
34. Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott – 80,000
35. David Docherty – 71,500
36. Men Nguyen – 63,000

The field will be chopped to nine today and the action is already underway from the Casino at the Empire. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WSOP Europe coverage.

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Useful poker terms:

HIT - To make a hand or catch a card or cards that improves one's hand. "I hit a gut-shot draw on the river."
RIVER - The last card dealt in a hand of stud or Hold'em.
CALLER - One who calls. Sometimes used collectively, as in "3 callers".
BIG BLIND - A blind bet, usually a raise of an earlier blind which would be called the SMALL BLIND. In limit poker, the BIG BLIND is usually the size of the minimum bet on the first round of betting.
BET - To put money into the pot, pursuant to the rules of the game, thus maintaining a chance of winning the pot.
SEAT POSITION - The actual seat a player has, normally numbered sequentially starting with 1 as the first seat to dealer's left. Not to be confused with POSITION in a particular pot. Typically unrelated to play of a hand but often important in peripheral aspects, e.g.: "Seats 1 and 10 are nonsmoking here", "Seat 5 has a good view of the table", "Seat 3 is in a high-traffic area".

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