Can John Juanda win another WSOPE Main Event Bracelet?

The final 24 players returned at noon on Sunday for day 4 action at the 2010 PokerStars European Poker Tour London £10,250 no-limit hold’em main event. During a short day of play the field reduced from the final three tables to just one final table of eight. That final table will be televised tomorrow starting at noon local time (4 a.m. PST) on the EPT Live video feed.

Here is a look at the final-table seating chart with chip counts:

Seat 1: David Vamplew, UK — 3,670,000
Seat 2: Thomas Marchese, USA, PokerStars player — 1,480,000
Seat 3: Fernando Brito, Portugal — 1,100,000
Seat 4: Per Ummer, Cyprus — 1,245,000
Seat 5: Artur Wasek, Poland, PokerStars qualifier — 2,250,000
Seat 6: Kayvan Payman, Canada — 1,295,000
Seat 7: Kyle Bowker, USA — 7,165,000
Seat 8: John Juanda, USA — 7,075,000

As you will see in the results list below the fourth day of the tournament was rather rough on some of the big-name players in the field. Team PokerStars pro Chad Brown was the first pro to start the trend, and he was quickly followed to the rail by Masaaki Kagawa. Young, American professionals Keven Stammen, Allen Bari, and Chance Kornuth were the next victims, and then John O’Shea from Ireland hit the rail in an unfortunate hand. He held ASpade Suit JSpade Suit against the AClub Suit 5Spade Suit of Artur Wasek. The board fell JClub Suit 5Club Suit 4Club Suit 3Club Suit giving Wasek a flush. The useless river fell 3Diamond Suit and the final Irishman hit the rail.

The only former world champion left in play was the next to fall. Team PokerStars pro Joe Hachem busted just after taking a new seat at the final two tables in 15th place. His A-5 ran into the A-K of John Juanda. The final Team PokerStars pro left in the field, Thomas Bichon, busted in 14th place.

Once again the culprit behind the elimination was Juanda, who grew his stack to 2 million by the time the field had reached two final tables, and by the end of play he had grown his stack to 7,075,000 (second chip-position). He is joined by rising star and Card Player Player of the Year challenger Thomas Marchese at the final table (fifth chip-position).

Marchese is currently 810 points behind the current leader Dwyte Pilgrim and he can close the gap and take the lead with a finish of fourth place or better tomorrow. If Marchese cashes in fifth place tomorrow, only 10 points will separate the two for the POY lead, making for a competitive contest during the final months of the year.

(Taken from Cardplayer.com)