Joe Tehan will be taking a massive chip-lead into Saturday’s Day 4 action at the Epic Poker League Main Event thanks to an incredibly fortuitous hand that eliminated Vanessa Rousso and Faraz Jaka on the bubble. Before I explain precisely what happened in the hand I think it’s important to recall the ugly way Rousso was eliminated from the 2011 WSOP Main Event earlier this year:

On Day 4 of the WSOP Main Event Rousso flopped a set of 6’s and after a raising war on the flop with Bach she made the all-in call. Bach was drawing very thin with an open-ended straight draw but got there on the turn eliminating Rousso. Now we’ve all lost in these situations, but the play of the hand by Bach was questionable at best and heart-breaking for Rousso who was poised to make a very deep run in the tournament.

Now, back to the Epic Poker League! This time around the beat was truly, bad, B-A-D, bad for Rousso. With 14 players remaining and only 12 getting paid a short-stacked Faraz Jaka moved all-in for 68,000, which Rousso raised to 120,000 with Pocket Queens. At this point Joe Tehan got a count and promptly moved all-in himself; Rousso quickly put her remaining 180,000 into the middle. Jaka flipped AA, Rousso of course had QQ, and Tehan had the powerhouse hand 2/4!?!?!?!?!??

I can only assume that Tehan thought Rousso would fold (this is on the bubble remember) and he would have two live cards against Jaka – basically free-rolling Jaka.

A 9-6-4-4-T board eliminated both Rousso and Jaka, and gave Tehan a massive 1,142,000 in chips, nearly double the next biggest stack, and an absolutely disgusting way to be eliminated from a tournament for both Jaka and Rousso, who is having a very tough 2011. My guess is that both Bach and Tehan will be taken off Rousso and hubby Chad Brown’s Christmas Card list.

Here is a look at the chip-counts for the 12 remaining players left in the field:

1. Joe Tehan — 1,142,000

2. Michael Mizrachi — 627,500

3. Scott Clements — 496,000

4. Amit Makhija — 424,000

5. Hafiz Khan — 417,000

6. Jason Mercier — 394,500

7. Chris Klodnicki — 371,500

8. Andrew Lichtenberger — 298,500

9. David Williams — 242,500

10. Noah Schwartz — 225,000

11. Sorel Mizzi — 185,000

12. Amnon Filippi — 162,000

Each player is guaranteed a massive payday of at least $51,920, with first-place pocketing a cool $797,680. Day 4 of the Epic poker League Main Event will be played at three 4-handed tables, where the remaining players will play down to the final table scheduled for Sunday.

You can follow Day 4’s action at the Epic Poker League website: www.EpicPoker.com

Tags: Aa, Bach, Cards, Chips, Christmas, Christmas Card, Guess, Heart, Hubby, Jaka, Joe Tehan, Lead, Michael Mizrachi, Play Of The Hand, Point Joe, Poker, Powerhouse, Stack, Vanessa Rousso, WSOP Main Event

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 17th, 2011 at 9:24 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.