22 poker players remain in the hunt for 2011 WSOP Final Table spot

The 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event field lost a lot of its luster on Day 7 as Sebastian Ruthenberg, Steve Brecher, John Esposito, David Bach, David “Doc” Sands, Andrew “Foucault” Brokos, Erick Lindgren, Tony Hachem, JP Kelly, and the last woman standing Erika Moutinho all hit the rail on what turned out to be a very fast-paced day at the Rio.

Although the chances of a noteworthy pro winning the Main event were severely damaged on Monday with all of the big-name eliminations, there are still a handful of “Name” players left in the field including 2011 bracelet winner and Player of the Year leader Ben Lamb (currently in 5^th place with 14,690,000 chips), online legend Phil “USCPhildo” Collins (currently in 6^th place with 13,805,000 chips), former UB poker pro and Poker VT coach Bryan “Devo” Devonshire (currently in 15^th place with 6,190,000), and Danish superstar Lars Bonding who is nursing a short-stack (currently in 20^th place with 4,140,000 chips).

On Monday we saw some of the looser players -who seemed to be “marks” for some of the other players– such as Guillame Darcourt and Hilton Labrada fall by the wayside, both leaving in dramatic fashion. And we also saw Ben Lamb hit his first rough patch of the 2011 Main Event as he lost a huge pot, but was able to weather the storm and end the day in the Top 5.

Another interesting moment on Day 7 was when Erika Moutinho was moved to the featured table, to the immediate right of her long-time boyfriend David “Doc” Sands. Neither Sands nor Moutinho could get much going throughout Day 7 and ended up finishing in 29^th and 30^th place respectively.

Today we will see the remaining 22 players pared down to just nine, at which point play will be suspended and the November Nine festivities will begin -and won’t be ending until early November!

Here is a look at the Top 10 chip counts heading into the biggest day of any of these players’ lives up to this point:

1.       Anton Makiievskyi - 21,045,000

2.       Eoghan O’Dea - 19,050,000

3.       Khoa Nguyen - 16,435,000

4.       Andrey Pateychuk - 16,245,000

5.       Ben Lamb - 14,690,000

6.       Phil Collins - 13,805,000

7.       John Hewitt - 13,265,000

8.       Ryan Lenaghan - 10,415,000

9.       Matt Giannetti - 8,920,000

10.   Konstantinos Mamaliadis - 8,195,000

Results courtesy of www.wsop.com