Four cards, four days, for a fortune.
The $10K Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Championship returned for Day 3 of 4 on Thursday, with a cast of characters befitting its ‘Championship’ status.
It has a prizepool to match, too, with first-place worth $767,395 — the biggest chunk of the $3,627,000 total.
And, as things stand, Maryland's Justin Liberto (above) has most of the chips in play.
Over the first two days of the tournament 390 entries were reduced to just a couple of dozen, and Day 3 would thin the field yet further. Of the 25 players still in the hunt on Thursday morning, 20 would fall before the day was done.
And as ever, reputation was no guarantee of success.
Casualties of Day 3 included plenty of former WSOP champions. David Coleman, Jason Mercier, Matt Vengrin, Joao Vieira, Nick Guagenti… The field was packed with those who had been there, done that.
They’ll need to wait a little longer to do it again.
Ryan Hughes, a three-time bracelet winner who started the day alongside Martin Zamani with a healthy lead over the chasing pack, went all but broke in a huge pot versus Nino Pansier early in the day.
Both had 
and a pair — a decent start in PLO8 — and got the chips in preflop.
Hughes: 
Pansier: 
The board ran out 
: no low, no ten, no diamond flush. Hughes was left with one small blind. It didn’t last him long.
Liberto leaps out to large lead
All 25 players who started the day were in the money — this tournament pays 59 spots — but the six-figure payouts were reserved for the top 6.
And with only five players making it through to Friday, that created a final table heavy with tension.
The final 9, from biggest to smallest stacks, were:
- Martin Zamani
- Justin Liberto
- Nathan Gamble
- Jarod Minghini
- Matthew Schreiber
- Nino Pansier
- Matthew Beinner
- Marco Johnson
- Yuhong Liu
Liu was out quickly, leaving play eight-handed for several hours as players jostled for position. Chief jostler was Justin Liberto, who soon took the lead and wouldn’t let go.
The next elimination, when it finally arrived, was a double. And it was Liberto who swung the axe.
A three-way pot went to the flop, Matthew Schreiber shoved and Liberto raised to put Jarod Minghini all-in. He couldn’t say no.
Schreiber: 
Liberto: 
Minghini: 
Ace-deuce is tempting when the low looks likely. But when it doesn’t come through it can be costly.
The 
flop put a low draw on the table. The 
runout made sure it didn’t get there. Liberto scooped with trip sixes, putting himself even further ahead.
Marco Johnson was the final elimination of the evening, losing his last chips to Nino Pansier. That leaves Pansier in the middle of the pack with 3.3M chips — around 28bb — but the man to catch remains Liberto.
With 13.5M chips, the two-time WSOP bracelet winner has almost 4x that of his nearest rival.
$10K Pot-Limit Omaha H-Lo — Final day chip counts (blinds: 60K/120K/120K)
- Justin Liberto: 13,590,000
- Nathan Gamble: 3,540,000
- Nino Pansier: 3,300,000
- Matthew Beinner: 1,770,000
- Martin Zamani: 1,195,000
The pay-jumps now are savage, and with over half the chips in play we expect Liberto to apply maximum pressure on his opponents when play resumes on Friday at 3:30pm.
Remaining payouts
- $767,395
- $511,580
- $351,037
- $245,467
- $174,981
