Poker News

A 21-year-old who has only cashed once in his life is leading the chase for $9 million at the World Series of Poker Main Event.

Evan Lamprea's total career winnings of $5,044 are just half the entry fee of this event – the second biggest live poker tournament of all time.

But in the early hours of this morning the little known Canadian, who has never finished higher than 164th in a serious poker tournament, bagged up 3,564,000 chips and headed off to bed ahead in the battle for the $8,944,138 first prize. 

Should he go on to win at the final table in November he would be the second 21-year-old to come from nowhere to triumph in a row, following American Joe Cada's $8.54m win last year.

At the end of Day 5 Lamprea leads German Michael Skender (3,527,000), Joseph Cheong (3,357,000), Duy Le (3,186,000) and Danish-born Theo Jorgensen (3,088,000) at the top of the leaderboard.

It was another brutal day in the Amazon room at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas as the field of 574 players who started the day was quickly trimmed.

After just four levels of play just 205 remained with spectators outnumbering the players for the first time in the tournament.

Among those heading into Day 6 is Pokerjolt columnist JP Kelly. The Ayelsbury Ace dodged danger all day and finished the session in 51st position overall with 1,474,000 chips.

Poker legend – and two-time WSOP Main Event winner Johnny Chan - is also still in the race. The 53-year-old ended the night with nearly 2.6 million in chips, putting himself among the chip leaders in ninth overall.

But Scotty Nguyen, who – as Pokerjolt reported earlier this year – had boasted he would win this event, was not so lucky.

The self-styled Prince of Poker was on the feature table and was talking as usual, telling anyone who would listen that Kenny Rogers got it right.

"It's like that song says," he told fascinated spectators. "There's no such thing as pot committed.  When you know you're beat, lay it down."

But the 1998 champion wasn't as good as his words and busted in 209th place when his ace-jack ran into Dane Mads Wissing's pocket kings right at the end of the day, leaving Nguyen to head home with, by his standards, a disappointing $48,847.

Other top players to hit the rail on Day 5 included Jason Mercier, Greg DeBora, Andre Coimbra and Team PokerStars Pro new girl Vanessa Selbst.

Kristoffer Thorson, Eric Buchman and Yevgeniy Timoshenko also headed home with the consolation of having cashed in the monster tourney.