After a nearly four-hour money bubble Thursday night that could mildly be described as an adventure, the 17 returning players in Day 4 of the $50,000 Poker Players Championship came ready to fire with their $100,000 min-cash locked up and only just over $40,000 in pay jumps until the final table was reached.
When it comes to ‘firing’ in a tournament, one player left in the field epitomizes that term, and he just happens to be a three-time champion of this event, now on the verge of a fourth.
The Grinder is doing it again
Before play began, Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi told PokerOrg that the plan for the day was “the same plan as I did for the last three titles, just apply a lot of pressure, get lucky, and play good.”
Check, check, and check.
Mizrachi did all three of those things all day long, steadily building his stack to the chip lead by the final table, then continuing to grow it from there until he had double his closest opponent by night's end.
Along his latest path of PPC destruction, Mizrachi slowed down the only player with comparable momentum on Friday, Ben Yu.
Yu had begun the day with just 95,000 chips, less than a single big bet, but he had ground his stack back to healthy throughout the day until he ran into Mizrachi with nine players left.
A sizable seven-card stud pot where Mizrachi made a better two pair dropped Yu back to where he started the day, on the short stack.
Mizrachi would go on to finish the day with an overwhelming 10,440,000 chips, while start-of-day leader Andrew Yeh could only bag 5,285,000 for 2nd place.
Etay makes the final table
Esther Taylor was already known as one of the best mixed game players in the world, hence why she was one of just three women to be drafted in 25K Fantasy this summer. She solidified that reputation by becoming the first woman to final table the PPC since Melissa Burr in 2014.
She'll try to become the first woman to win the event on Saturday.
Her day was a swingy one, starting the day 5th out of 17, but she soon found herself on the short stack in just the second level of the day. Taylor was then able to double several times on her way to a healthier stack of 37 big blinds / 9 big bets by the time the final eight were reached and then make it to Day 5 from there.
"My whole tournament motto is just to keep myself in somehow," she told PokerOrg, "and it's unorthodox a lot of the times, and I get a lot of criticism, but I just try to keep myself in and have a shot."
By the first break of the final table, Taylor found herself on the short stack again, and if not for a great break and a better draw in a very cool hand of no-limit 2-7 Single Draw, she would have been eliminated in 7th place.
Taylor moved in over a raise from Andrew Yeh holding 
, and Yeh called with a better 
. Taylor opted to discard her ten and try to improve, which, had she not, would have ended her tournament.
Instead, she correctly drew that one card and drilled a , giving her a winning wheel to double up and survive.
Taylor told us it was pure instinct that led her to break a hand that many players would have gone broke with.
"My gut just told me that a ten was dead. I can't really explain it to you, but I go with my intuition, so I was like 'here it is, I can either give myself a chance or pat and be walking out of the tournament.' So I broke it and got extremely lucky, obviously. I think it's kind of a cool hand, too."
Thanks in part to that hand, she’ll return for Day 5 with the 6th biggest stack of the seven survivors.
"It's obviously so thrilling for me. This is probably one of the biggest spots I've ever been in in my poker career. It's definitely so amazing playing against really good players, so I'm excited."
E-Dog put to sleep by one-outer
Along the way to the final table was one of the craziest coolers you’ll see that brought an end to Eric ‘E-Dog’ Lindgren’s day.
In a hand of Pot-Limit Omaha, Lindgren found himself on the turn with an ace-high flush draw versus Joao Vieira’s nine-high straight with an inferior flush draw.
That is, unless the 
rolled off to give him a straight flush.
That’s exactly what happened, and after Lindgren raised and was then put all in by Vieira, Lindgren couldn’t get away from his hand, calling off to be eliminated from the tournament in 11th place for $121,573.
A late-night encore?
With the final eight players on the main stage for the home stretch of the night, the closing hours of the day felt similar to Thursday’s marathon, with plenty of friendly chatter, including newly nicknamed ‘Blackout’ Ben Yu telling tales of his drinking exploits in college. Who knew?!
Yu may have needed a beverage or two, after all the work he did to return to contention went for naught following that Mizrachi hand.
He was unable to create one more spin-up, as he was eliminated by João Vieira on the final hand before the first break of the final table.
From there, the shorter stacks all clawed into contention again, with six of the final seven players between four and seven million chips, with Ben Lamb the only player under two. Level 22 would come and go without an elimination, and the stacks continued to flatten with Mizrachi, Yeh, and Bryn Kenney exchanging the lead.
As Level 23, the final level of the night, progressed, Lamb would be the only player at risk, but he would double a couple of times to join the ranks of the healthy, while late in the level, Mizrachi would become the first to cross ten million chips with pocket kings against Taylor’s pocket tens in limit hold ‘em.
From there, the clock ticked down, and play ended after six levels, at 2.50am PT.
Play will now resume on Saturday at 3pm PT, with PokerGO streaming Day 5 at 4pm.
The question now is, can we get to a winner Saturday, or will an unprecedented Day 6 be necessary?
$50,000 Poker Players Championship - end of Day 4 chip counts
- 1. Michael Mizrachi – 10,440,000 (104 big blinds / 26 big bets)
- 2. Andrew Yeh – 5,285,000 (52 big blinds / 13 big bets)
- 3. Bryn Kenney – 5,045,000 (50 big blinds / 12 big bets)
- 4. Joao Vieira – 3,640,000 (36 big blinds / 9 big bets)
- 5. Albert Daher – 3,380,000 (33 big blinds / 8 big bets)
- 6. Esther Taylor – 3,170,000 (31 big blinds / 7 big bets)
- 7. Ben Lamb – 1,140,000 (11 big blinds / 2 big bets)
Day 4 results
- 8. Ben Yu - $142,720
- 9. Marco Johnson - $142,720
- 10. Christian Roberts - $121,573
- 11. Erick Lindgren - $121,573
- 12. Mike Matusow – $108,445
- 13. Chris Vitch - $108,445
- 14. Justin Liberto - $108,445
- 15. Ali Eslami - $101,526
- 16. Jon Kyte - $101,526
- 17. Matthew Ashton - $100,000
