Saturday July 2 , 2011 : At the World Series of Poker in Vegas the anticipation of the main event is rising as the last few competitions run their course, with event 53, the women's NLHE championship, starting Friday and attracting a full roster of well-known female poker stars.
Thus far the 2011 Series can best be described as successful despite the profits of doom following Black Friday, with entry lists well patronised and in many cases larger than was the case last year.
Event 48: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em finally concluded late Friday night in its "extra time" fourth day, with Athanasios Polychronopoulos emerging triumphant after a tough heads up against Simon Charette. The win gave Polychronopoulos his first bracelet and a bumper first place prize of $650,223, leaving his opponent with a second placing check for $404,235.
Polychronopoulos, along with Charette, Peter Ippolito and Yevgeniy Timoshenko all returned for the fourth day action Friday after Sebastian Winkler was the eliminated as the last player to fall in Day 3. Earlier, day 3 started with 30 survivors from a massive entry field of 2,713, with Winkler on top of the chip counts, a position he had held for most of the first two days of the contest.
Going into the fourth day Polychronopoulos was chip leader with 3.68 million, followed by Timoshenko on 3.46 million, both well ahead of Peter Ippolitio and Charette. Although the other three contestants swapped positions several times, the leader generally held on to his advantage throughout.