Ryan Olisar Leads WSOP Event #9 Final Table

American Ryan Olisar leads the final nine players in the $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Re-entry event #9 at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

Olisar, of Illinois – with 3,715,000 chips – holds a healthy lead of 1.3 million over second placed Brian Rast (2,415,000), while a third American in Amanda Musumeci starts the fourth and final day of event in the Amazon Room of the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in third spot on 2,040,000.

As the only female still alive in the event, Philadelphia’s Musumeci has the opportunity to become the first woman to secure a gold bracelet in an open tournament since Brooklyn’s Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst took down the $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha event #19 back in 2008 for $227,965.

Amanda Musumeci Eyeing Up History

She made her move up the chip counts midway through Day 3, doubling-up on Olisar after her pockets tens held against the ace-king of the close-of-day chip leader. Thereafter, the WSOP Circuit regular steadily climbed up the rankings to have a great chance of breaking that four-year duck!

Day 4 will start with the blinds at 15,000/30,000 with a 5,000 ante, so even ninth placed Derrick Huang, of New York, will begin with more than 25 big blinds on 760,000 chips as all nine survivors chase the gold bracelet and $781,398 top prize that equates to the largest chunk from a total prize pool of $4,595,400.

Day 3 began with 33 players, but it only took a few hours before the last nine were known, when American Aviraham Lovton exited in 10th place for $46,413 as the final table bubble boy.

Jonathan Duhamel Crashes Out

There were also some quality pros still alive at the beginning of the day, but the likes of Vegas trio Paul Wasicka (33rd for $18,427), Ari Engel (25th for $22,885) and Scott Seiver (17th for $28,675), as well as Virginia’s Lee Childs (24th for $22,885), French-Canadian Team PokerStars Pro Jonathan Duhamel (21st for $22,885) and Vancouver’s Daniel Idema (14th for $36,303), failed to make the final table.

Duhamel – who, of course, famously won the 2010 main event for $8,944,310 – crashed out during level 22, when the blinds were set at 8,000/16,000 with a 2,000 ante.

California’s Rast – who had started the day as chip leader – limped before Duhamel raised to more than 300,000 to have just about 100,000 left. But Florida’s Barry Hutter shoved all-in for approximately 600,000 as the action folded around to Rast, who took his time before pushing out a call. Duhamel, understandably, placed the remainder of his stack into the middle.

Brian Rast Scores Double Knockout

With Duhamel and Hutter at risk, the former showed K♠ J♦ while the latter revealed 10♥ 10♠ and Rast tabled A♣ Q♥. The Q♣ J♠ 2♦ flop gave Rast the lead with a pair of queens, while the 7♥ turn and 5♣ river offered no help to Hutter (20th for $22,885) and Duhamel as the chip leader scored a double elimination.

However, Rast wasn’t the only player to notch a double knockout as Olisar managed the same feat when his A♦ K♥ improved to a diamond flush to send Andrew Rennhack (13th for $36,303) and Giorgio Medici (12th for $46,413) to the rail.

WSOP 2012 Event #9 Final Table

1. Ryan Olisar (USA) – 3,715,000 (seat 7)

2. Brian Rast (USA) – 2,415,000 (seat 5)

3. Amanda Musumeci (USA) – 2,040,000 (seat 1)

4. Duy Ho (USA) – 1,990,000 (seat 8)

5. Benjamin Reinhart (USA) – 1,800,000 (seat 2)

6. Ashkan Razavi (Canada) – 985,000 (seat 4)

7. Greg Mueller (Canada) – 820,000 (seat 3)

8. Dien Le (USA) – 775,000 (seat 9)

9. Derrick Huang (USA) – 760,000 (seat 6)