Damian Salas Tops 297 Players on Day 4 of Main Event

Day 4 of the World Series of Poker $10,000 World Championship Main Event returned 1,084 players to action with all of them guaranteed a min cash of $15,000. Five levels of action trimmed the field down to nearly a single room of 297 players. Leading the field is Damian Salas after ending the night with 4.6 million.

Making his third straight Day 5 of the Main Event Kenny Hallaert was brimming with confidence and energy while right on Salas’ heels after bagging up 4.1 million himself. 

“I had an amazing day, I remember bagging less chips than what I started the day with on Day 5,” said Hallaert. “I’m looking forward to my third Day 5 in a row of the Main Event – I kinda like this tournament.”

“Obviously, the dream is the make the Final Table but I’m realistic. There’ still 300 players left and still three full days ahead of us until the final table,” he added. “I’m not setting my hopes to high, I’m going to play one hand at a time tomorrow.”

Kenny Hallaert was ultra focused the second half of the day. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)
“I’m not going to take too many risks tomorrow, but if my chips have to go in – they will,” Hallaert said. “I’m not going to fold my way to the top or ladder up.”

“I liked being in the back corner of the room staring at the wall, there were no distractions from cameras or spotlights,” he said after starting the day at the Feature Table for the broadcast. “For me, it’s an advantage being at the Feature Table with the experience I have there.”

Hallaert credited his third straight Day 5 to running good. “There’s still better players for me that may deserve Day 5 more but I’ve put a lot of work into my game over the last year has definitely paid off.”

Mickey Craft was certainly one of the main stories on Friday. He finished among the chip leaders, only got 45-minutes of sleep after a night of rowdy partying and showed up an hour late to his table. He immediately ordered tequila and things got crazier from there.

Mickey Craft played mostly large pots, small ball was not his style. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)
Craft had an up and down day with his wild play, but never dipped under 2 million in chips. He finished the day with 2.3 million and hopefully has sleep on the docket for tonight.

JP Kelly, Ben Lamb, Hiren “Sunny” Patel and Mike Linster finished on the top portion of the leader board. Bryan Piccioli, Matthias De Meulder, Michael Ruane, Clint Tolbert, Eoghan O’Dea, Brandon Meyers, Dominik Nitsche, Greg Mueller and Chris Wallace finished around the average stack.

Dominik Nitsche is one of the expereinced German players remaining. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)
Jeffrey Lisandro, Danielle Andersen, Liv Boeree, Mike Gorodinsky, Tony Gregg and Steve Billirakis earned a cash but did not survive the day.

Only former Main Event champs returned on Friday: Scotty Nguyen, Carlos Mortensen and Joe Cada. The WSOP is guaranteed a new champion as neither we able to survive the day.

Day 5 resumes at 11 am PT Saturday with the broadcast kicking off on ESPN2 from 11 am – 1 pm PT. Then the streams turns over exclusively to PokerGO from 1 pm – 6:15 pm PT.

Michael Ruane earned the largest score of his career in 2016 when he finished in fourth place in the Main Event. Midway through Day 4 Ruane was getting warmed up and having flashbacks to his run last year.

Vivian Saliba was the only female player under the age of 26-years-old to play the Main Event and the Brazilain pro began the day on PokerGO. She considers herself a Pot Limit Omaha player but together an impressive run to cash in the Main Event.

Ben Lamb took the WSOP by storm in 2011 by winning a bracelet, the Player of the Year race and finished third in the Main Event. Since then, he’s grown into one of Vegas’ biggest cash game players and feels like he could make the Final Table again.

Players find all sorts of the things to complain about over the course of a summer. Caufman Talley had the ultimate first-world problem early in the day – needing two bags for his chips to move rooms.

Jacob Balsiger is another November Niner that chipped up during Day 4 and spent time at the Feature Table for the broadcast. He could feel the pressure mounting as the Amazon Room disappeared into the Brasilia Room.