Three remain as Koray Aldemir dominates 2021 WSOP Main Event final table play

Haley Hintze
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Posted on: November 17, 2021 1:46 pm EST

The Main Event at the 2021 World Series of Poker has transformed into the Koray Aldemir Show, as the German-born pro continues his commanding march toward a World Championship bracelet. The German-born Aldemir began Day 8’s final table with a commanding lead, then widened that margin through a little more than six hours of action that saw six of his eight remaining foes hit the rail.

Only two players remain as challengers to Aldemir’s probable bracelet title: the United Kingdom’s Jack Oliver and the United States’ George Holmes. Oliver narrowly averted elimination in a hand late on Tuesday evening that could have seen the final table reduced to two via a double knockout, with only Holmes left to challenge Aldemir’s run. Instead, the remaining three will settle the final spots when Day 9 in the Main Event gets underway at 2 pm Pacific Time.

Here are the chip counts entering the final day’s action:

  1. Koray Aldemir 264,600,000
  2. Jack Oliver 77,300,000
  3. George Holmes 57,400,000

Oliver tripled up to stay alive

For all of Aldemir’s Day 8 domination, he could have entered Day 8 with more than 300,000 chips and only Holmes remaining in his path to a title. Instead, with four players remaining, the UK’s Oliver logged an unlikely triple-up that pushed him from fourth place and the shortest stack to second spot, ahead of Holmes.

Oliver’s triple-up came in a three-way hand with both he and fellow short-stacked player Joshua Remitio all in before the flop against Aldemir. Oliver moved all in with Jd-9d with his last 20.5 million in chips to start the betting action. Remitio then moved all in for more, 27.2 million, with his own Ah-Js. Aldemir then found pocket queens in the big blind and called, putting both players at risk.

Aldemir was the favorite to knock out both players and Remitio was the favorite of the other two to survive. However, Oliver made a runner-runner flush as the 10d-9h-8s / 3d / 7d board ran out, to the excitement of the fans screaming from the seating around the feature-table stage. Oliver’s made flush put a small dent into Aldemir’s huge stack and left Remitio on fumes, and Oliver busted Remitio in fourth position on the following hand.

Aldemir knocked out Argentina’s Lococo to open huge edge

The final table played out in predictable fashion early as two of the shortest remaining stacks, Chase Bianchi and Jareth East, busted during the day’s first level. With seven players remaining, however, a huge collision occurred between Aldemir and Argentina’s rapper-turned-poker-star, Alejandro Lococo, that reframed the final table.

Lococo led in the hand with pocket tens to Aldemir’s pocket nines, having bet first and then calling Aldemir’s three-bet before the flop. A J-J-9 flop, however, proved a disaster for “Papo MC.” Aldemir bet each street throughout the hand and Lococo called each time, putting himself all in with what he believed was the best hand, two pair. Instead, Lococo opened his nines for the full house, sending Lococo off to a sudden seventh-place exit.

From there, Aldemir used his continuing run of good cards to further bully the table while busting two more of the remaining shorter stacks. The United States’ Hye Park busted in sixth spot, while Turkey’s Ozgur Secilmis departed in fifth, both sent off by Aldemir. In all, spots four through nine in the Main Event were decided on Tuesday evening and resulted in these payouts:

4. Joshua Remitio (United States) – $2,300,000

5. Ozgur Secilmis (Turkey) – $1,800,000

6. Hye Park (United States) – $1,400,000

7. Alejandro Lococo (Argentina) – $1,225,000

8. Jareth East (United Kingdom) – $1,100,000

9. Chase Bianchi (United States) – $1,000,000

Featured image source: PokerGO