It's only been six months since Michael Berk thought he might retire from real poker. He was probably joking, but when you hit a video poker score like this one, it's easy to stop believing you might be leading the WPT World Championship in a few months. Silly boy.
As the 2024 WPT World Championship heads to Day 4 with 61 players remaining, Berk leads the field toward the $3.1 million first prize. To look at him now, it's almost like he never thought about retiring in favor of a career in video poker.
World Championship Watch List
Though Berk leads the field with 61 remaining, there are many crushers threatening his un-retirement.
One-time WPT Prime champion Fabian Gumz is in the hunt, as are Mikita Badziakouski and Scott Stewart.
And then there is the man ready for his moment in the WPT spotlight.
Preston McEwen is a threat at any poker table. A WSOP Circuit end boss with more than two million in live tournament earnings, he's a onetime rock and roll drummer who has booked wins time and time again. He's due for a big-time score. He built his stack throughout the Day 3 and tonight has 6.3 million (a top 20 stack) headed into Day 4.
Jesus take the wheel stack
Kyle Birdwell – who, as we pointed out last night, is not a Buddhist – arrived on Day 3 with one of the smallest stacks in the field. But, the man looking to one-up his new-millionaire-buddy Chase Bricker had added a new guardian on his chip stack: a LEGO minifigure of Jesus Christ.
What happened after Jesus took over?
Birdwell, "First thing, I ripped it in with pocket eights and got called by ace-king. King in the window, but an eight right there on the flop."
After that first double up, things got fun, and Birdwell got some company. All of a sudden, his friend Bricker was on the rail sweating him.
"He's gotten hot since I got here!" Bricker said.
At one point on Day 3, Birdwell was up over three million (at that point, more than 75 big blinds). Late on Day 3, he suffered a crippling blow when he got ace-queen all-in against ace-queen and his opponent ran out a flush. Nevertheless, the man from Texas survived to Day 4.
Even the pros can go blind
Here's a quick story from Day 3 that will make you slow down the next time you think you know what is about to happen in a poker hand:
Maria Konnikova was already two steps toward the door, and casual observers had already moved on from the hand that sent her packing.
Anyone writing about her exit would have been ready to hit publish the moment she got pocket queens in versus pocket kings, and if a writer hadn't already written Konnikova's obituary, they would have started when a king hit on the flop.
The runout was relatively quick, and by the river, almost everyone at the table believed her only out left was a jack to fill in a backdoor gutshot straight. It didn't come, and so it was over.
Except it wasn't.
Years ago, the PokerStars Blog's Stephen Bartley coined the phrase "River Blindness," a condition that causes sufferers to lose sight of anything that happens after the turn card falls.
Today, Konnikova and many of those watching experienced a simultaneous case of this dread disease, but it worked out for Konnikova in the best way. No one had been paying attention to the two clubs on the flop, the next on the turn, and indeed the club on the river to give Konnikova a club flush and the full double to more than an average stack.
Just goes to show, it doesn't matter whether you're an amateur or a pro trained by Erik Seidel, you too can experience River Blindness.
*If you feel you are experiencing symptoms of River Blindness, talk to your primary care physician or visit your nearest Urgent Care facility.
Alas, Konnikova's good fortune didn't last. By the time there were 137 players remaining, Konnikova picked up pocket jacks and ran into Nikita Kuznetsov's ace-king. She got her half-average stack all-in but lost to a king on the turn during the runout.
Maybe next year
Konnikova was among many notables who didn't survive to Day 4. Joining her in the "Maybe Next Year" crew: Calvin Anderson, Asher Conniff, Maurice Hawkins, Mike Leah, Kasey Mills, Mark Newhouse, Mo Nuwwarah, Chino Rheem, Shannon Shorr, Nate Silver, JC Tran, Jon Van Fleet, and Vince Van Patten.
The remaining 61 players will return Thursday at 12pm for another full day of play.
All photos courtesy WPT
