With 98.5% of the 2012 WSOP Main Event starting field eliminated we are left with just 97 players questing that most coveted of gold bracelets and to be crowned the ultimate World Champion. Leading the field as we head into day 6 will be Californian Kyle Keranen with 6.935 million chips. Keranen won several seven figure pots to get to the chip lead including a lucky +3 million pot in which he five bet bluffed all in preflop holding Qd9 and was lucky to outdraw his opponents pocket Jacks to assume the chip lead.
Big names to fall by the wayside in Day 5 include; John Juanda, Sorel Mizzi, Ronny "1-ronnyr3" Kaiser, Dan Shak, Scott Montgomery, Andrew "LuckyChewy" Lichtenberger, JP Kelly, Freddy Deeb, Joseph Cheong, Marcel Luske and Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu lost his final 240k chips at the hand of hollywood star Kevin Pollack in an AQ vs KQ hand (Pollack holding AQ). Pollack however was soon to also be hitting the rail after an incredibly bad piece of luck as his QQ was beaten by his opponents QQ as a hearts four flush.
Despite the dwindling numbers however we still have a smattering of well known talent among the 97 hopefuls remaining including; Amnon Filippi, former November Niner's Eric Buchman and Sam Holden, Gavin Smith, 2012 Bracelet winners Dung Nguyen and Vanessa Selbst , Jason Sommerville, , Erik Cajelais, Isaac Baron, David "ODB" Baker, Kyle Bowker and Leo Wolpert. Former end of day chip leaders Gaelle Baumann, Paul Volpe and Dave D'Alesandro are also still in play - the highest ranked of those currently Baumann who has just short of 4 million chips, good for eighth place as things stand.
All remaining players are guaranteed at least a $62k payday although with $8.5k up top and over $27 million to be shared among the final table, that's where everyone will be heading for if they can.
The players will return today at 12pm local time to play five more levels.
Find more of the latest news and articles relating to the World Series of Poker in the 2012 WSOP-section.