PokerStars.net NAPT Mohegan Sun Day 4: Mike Beasley Leads Stacked Final Table
The the final table is set for the $5,000 Main Event of the North American Poker Tour's Mohegan Sun stop, and it's one of the most impressive lineups of the year. This is the nascent PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour's second stop, and it once again drew a stacked field, this time to Uncasville, CT. Four of the eight players at the final table already have a World Series bracelet. But the chip lead belongs to a lesser-known tournament regular, Mike Beasley. Florida strip-club owner William Beasley came out of nowhere during the last level of the night to steal the lead from Vanessa Selbst, who had held it for two days.
Beasley has four World Series cashes and over $300,000 in career tournament winnings, most of it from East Coast events. He also made the money at the first NAPT event at the Venetian, making him one of the the few players to cash in both. Beasley got unlucky in several big pots on Day 4, but his luck turned around at the end of the night. He eliminated the last two players of the night to jump from 1.7 million in chips to nearly 5 million.
Vanessa Selbst, on the other hand, crushed the competiton since the beginning of the event, but saw her stack trend downward as the field approached the final table. Selbst won a pot limit Omaha bracelet in 2008 and finished third in the heads-up championship the same week. Selbst has been absent from the tournament circuit since she took a break from poker to attend Yale Law School. But a major tournament just down the road in Connecticut was too much for her to resist.
Throughout the event, the DeucesCracked pro caught countless opponents by surprise with her gutsy play. One of them was Alan "grebnrets86" Sternberg. With two tables left, Sternberg four-bet shoved 42 big blinds with 6?5?, and Selbst looked him up with A?5?. Sternberg found himself on the rail in 12th place, and Selbst found herself with nearly a third of the chips in play. But after doubling up some short stacks at the end, Selbst will start the final table just behind William Beasley.
Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy, Derek Raymond, and Jonathan "FatalError" Aguiar also made the incredibly stacked final table. Josephy won his bracelet in a 7-card stud event in 2005 - the first stud tournament he'd ever played. He has more than $1.5 million in lifetime tournament cashes, a number that pales in comparison to the amount of money he's made as one of the game's most active backers. Raymond picked up an Omaha hi/lo split bracelet at the most recent series.
Aguiar may not have a bracelet yet, but it's hard to argue with his impressive tournament record and three-quarters of a million dollars in tournament winnings. The friendship between Aguiar and Seiver, who both live in Panorama Towers in Las Vegas, has provided entertaining table talk throughout the tournament and adds an interesting dynamic to the final table.
Several other notable players made it to the top 24 but couldn't survive Day 4 to reach the final table. Bob Lauria was eliminated in 24th place, Jordan Morgan in 16th, and Petter Jetten in 13th. Vanessa Rousso was the only Team PokerStars Pro to make Day 4, and she finished just short of the final table in 10th place. Brandon "AreTheseUtz" Hall was the final table bubble boy, earning $47,000 for ninth place. His elimination locked in the following lineup for Sunday's televised final table:
Seat 1: Scott Seiver (1,125,000)
Seat 2: Cliff Josephy (1,940,000)
Seat 3: Vanessa Selbst (4,545,000)
Seat 4: Derek Raymond (1,545,000)
Seat 5: Mike Beasley (4,985,000)
Seat 6: Michael Woods (2,950,000)
Seat 7: Jonathan Aguiar (1,535,000)
Seat 8: Alistar Melville (2,940,000)
The final eight will return to the Mohegan Sun felt at noon EST on Sunday to play for the top prize of $750,000. Follow the up-to-the-minute action here at PokerNews.
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