Day 4 was a hectic one at the Rio with no less than 5 events going on so let’s get straight into it:

Event 3, the $3,000 heads up NLHE/PLO event played down to a winner from the 8 that remained. Jason Koon got the better of Annette Obrestad and Simeon Naydenov on his way to the final, while Leif Force dispensed with Andy Frankenberger and Julian Powell. Koon and Force played a match that lasted almost 4 hours, with Force who always looks like he’d be more comfortable on a beach surfing, emerging victorious and winning $207,708.

Next we move to the $1,500 7-Card Stud hi/lo which had Xuan Liu in charge of the 23 that came back to play today. She made the final, alongside Todd Brunson and Michael Mizrachi but she wasn’t going to give us a first woman WSOP bracelet winner. In the end she managed 6th, with Mizrachi finishing 5th. Chris Bjorin and Cory Zeidman where the last two remaining and it was Zeidman who took home the bracelet and the $201,559 first place money after finishing 6th last year.

Event 5, the $1,500 Pot Limit Holdem got off to a quiet start and today saw us play down from 71 to a final table of 9. Negreanu and Esfandiari were the ones to watch here and that’s still the case for Mr. Negreanu who goes into the final table 6th in chips. Also coming back are Tommy Vedes, John Eames and Jonathan Aguiar. Esfandiari could only manage to hang on until 44th place. The final table play will start at 2 pm tomorrow.

Event 6 is the $5,000 No Limit Holdem Mix Max. 409 hopefuls sat down for the start of the full ring day and but 112 will be coming back for the 6-max tomorrow. All of the big guns were out for this one, and Negreanu even tried a spot of multi-tabling that sees him return with 10 big blinds. The Phil’s, Hellmuth and Ivey both couldn’t advance. Marvin Rettenmaier, Gavin Smith, Victor Ramdin, Eugene Katchalov, and Olivier Busquet are among those that will return tomorrow to chase down chip leader Joe Tehan.

Finally, we get to the $1,500 7 Card Stud event which drew 367 players, possibly a victim of the fact that so many players were busy elsewhere. Rogerio Sousa is the chip leaders on 41,000 with Chau Giang sitting in 3rd on 35,800. Barry Greenstein, Jonathan Duhamel and Fabrice Soulier are also still in. There are 110 left and they’ll get close to a final table tomorrow. The average stack is 15 big bets so each player has about 2 big pots left in them to get moving.

Tomorrow sees just one new event, the $1,500 Omaha hi/lo gets underway at 12 pm and is being played fixed limit.

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written by Rob \\ tags: Day 4, Las Vegas, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Poker, World Series of Poker, WSOP, Xuan Liu