After four days of play the “official” final table of eight players (yes, eight, not nine) has been decided at the inaugural World Series of Poker Asia Pacific (WSOP APAC) tournament series, and one very well-known poker pro has positioned himself for a chance at the title on Monday, Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu amassed a mountain of chips on the penultimate day of the tournament, and will be second in chips (unofficial) heading into tomorrow’s final table.

Oddly enough, had the WSOP APAC Main Event stuck with the traditional nine-handed final table format, the tournament would likely have been in the running for one of the best in WSOP history. Instead, Antonio Esfandiari was eliminated in 9th place taking away a very solid storyline heading into the final day of the WSOP APAC series. Esfandiari was done in when his AK went unimproved against the Pocket Queens of Benny Spindler according to the WSOP Live Reporting feed.

Even without Antonio the final table features a tough-as-nails lineup headlined by the aforementioned Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, who will be joined by German poker pro and EPT London Champ Benny Spindler, 2012 WSOP October Niner Russell Thomas, and Macau high-stakes regular Winifred Yu. With Negreanu at the top of the leader-board the WSOP APAC couldn’t have asked for a better publicity coup, and should Negreanu win, the inaugural WSOP APAC tournament series would quickly go from interesting to memorable.

But to win the event Negreanu will likely have to deal with Benny Spindler who is slightly ahead of him, for the chip-lead. Spindler may not have the name recognition of a Sam Trickett or Marvin Rettenmaier, but the young German has put together quite the poker resume in his five-year poker career. The 2011 EPT London Champion could pick-up the third seven-figure cash of his career with a win on Monday, which would also put him in 3rd place on the German All-Time Money List behind Pius Heinz and Tobias Reinkemeier (Spindler currently sits in 5th place on the list), passing Phillipp Gruissem and Marvin Rettenmaier.

Joining the four known commodities will be a quartet of Aussies, led by Daniel Marton and George Tsatsis who are both sitting on a chip-stacks of over 2 million, while their fellow countrymen Kahle Burns and Mikel Habb will have some work to do as both men are under 1 million chips heading into the final table.

Here is a look at the seating assignments and unofficial chip counts of the eight final table participants battling for the 2013 WSOP APAC Main Event crown:

Seat 1: Daniel Marton – 2,160,000
Seat 2: George Tsatsis – 2,321,000
Seat 3: Mikel Habb – 551,000
Seat 4: Benny Spindler – 2,931,000
Seat 5: Winfred Yu – 367,000
Seat 6: Russell Thomas – 490,000
Seat 7: Kahle Burns – 905,000
Seat 8: Daniel Negreanu – 2,437,000

When play resumes on Monday the remaining players will find themselves entrenched in Level 22 of the tournament, with blinds at 10,000/20,000 with a 3,000 chip ante.

*Resources: www.wsop.com, www.thehendonmob.com

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