Day 5 is 'Moving Day' for WSOP Main Event players

With the remaining players in the World Series of Poker's Main Event safely in the money, Day 5 of the eight-day march to the November Nine became moving day; many players either solidified their position as a contender for the final table or busted out trying to get there.

Players with chips used them to pressure opponents to build larger and larger stacks, wore wide grins and chatted it up with the rest of the table. Those holding short stacks looked forward with a steely determination, looking for one double-up to get the momentum rolling again.

The biggest mover of the day was chip-leader Canadian Evan Lamprea, who started the day with just under half-a-million chips, but finished with more than 3.5 million. Joseph Cheong upped his chip count by more than 2.6 million and will start Day 6 in second with more than 3.3 million. Matt Affleck, who started the day in fourth chip position, continued to excel and will start Day 6 with 2.9 million chips, in sixth place.

Joseph Cheong is one of four players with more than 3 million chips. (photo by Vin Narayanan)

Two-time Main Event champion Johnny Chan also had a big day, picking his spots perfectly. When he sensed weakness he pushed to pick up pots uncontested, but also picked up premium hands at the right time, busting players when he was dealt pocket kings at least twice. Chan, who started the day in 13th with a shade over 1.1 million, will start Day 6 in 10th with more than 2.5 million.

Jean-Robert Bellande also had a big day, parlaying a modest 356,000 into just under 1 million at the end of eight hours of play. He seemed to have a read on every player at his table, asking one how he got so many chips by playing so tight after he surrendered his big blind to Bellande's pre-flop raise.

"I'm not playing tight," the player responded.

"I think your definition of a tight starting hand range might be a little different from mine," Bellande responded.

Some players rolled the dice and came up short. A short-stacked Brandon Cantu shoved all in pre-flop with 9-7 of clubs only to be called by the big blind, who held the ace and king of spades. Cantu hit a seven on the flop, but with two spades on the board, he had a lot of cards to dodge. Unfortunately for Cantu, a spade hit on the river, ending his run in 444th to cash for $31,647.

Another Day 5 casualty was Sammy Farha, who had some tough luck when he lost half his stack with ace-queen when his opponent hit a 10 holding ace-10. He then got the short end of ace-deuce vs. pocket sevens.

Donny, the youngest of the Mizrachi brothers, was the second to bust out. (photo by Aaron Todd)

The second Mizrachi brother was eliminated, when Donny caught a pair on the flop holding jack-nine and improved to two pair on the river, but the river jack gave his opponent a king-high straight. Eric Mizrachi was eliminated on Day 4, while Michael has nearly 1.8 million and Robert is nursing a short stack with 270,000.

Players will start to really feel the effects of payout jumps once the field is under 100 players, most likely sometime tomorrow. While 171st place and 100th place (and every place in between) pay $57,102, each table that breaks after that will earn players a payout jump of at least $10,000 more. With 206 players remaining, tournament officials plan to play tomorrow until the field is reduced to eight or nine tables, or 72 or 81 players.