But neither Greg Raymer nor Ted Forrest scare chipleader Isaac Haxton.
“The internet kids are the ones I’m worried about,” Haxton told PokerListings.com.
“[Alec] Torelli’s a really good player and so is Dani Stern. Justin Bonomo is a good friend of mine and he’s an excellent player.”
All of the above will join Team PokerStars’ Lex Veldhuis, Full Tilt’s Vitaly Lunkin and Noah “fouruhaters” Schwartz at the nine-handed final table tomorrow.
A murderer’s row, to be sure, but the 2007 World Poker Tour PokerStars Caribbean Adventure runner-up likes his chances.
“I feel great heading into tomorrow,” he said. “I have one-quarter of the chips in play and my seat at the table is not so bad.”
Haxton entered the day among the short stacks with 540,000 to his name, but quickly managed to pull his head above water with a timely treble.
As rivals Andrew Robl, Neil Channing, Andy Black and Brian Townsend succumbed and the potential prize money increased, Haxton built his stack with a bit of small-ball poker.
“I had kings versus queens against Matt Marafioti and busted him for 600k, but it was mostly small pots after that,” he said.
Sitting on an average stack when the field consolidated into a ten-handed final table, Haxton took advantage of a fortunate flop to seize control of the tournament.
Holding pocket sixes, Haxton flopped bottom set against then-chipleader Alec Torelli, who had flopped top pair and tried in vain to bully his rival from the pot.
Haxton persisted and doubled through, building his stack up over the 5 million mark and taking the chip lead.
A few rounds later, Tony G was eliminated in tenth place and the final table was set.
“I feel fantastic [about making the final table],” Haxton told PokerListings. “It’s great.
“I’m not going to say that it makes me think I’m a much better player than I thought I was a couple of days ago or that it’s anything more than me making the final table in a World Series event, but it definitely feels great.”
<a href=”http://www.pokerlistings.com/zeejustin-on-top-in-wsops-40k-bonanza-41608″>Echoing fellow finalist Justin Bonomo, Haxton told PL.com he thought the level of play in the tournament was somewhat uneven.
“These really big buy-in poker tournaments have a polarizing effect on the fields,” he said. “The high buy-in prices out a lot of the winning - but not high-stakes - online players but there are plenty of rich amateurs who are as willing to play a $40k event as a $10k one.
“There’s a high percentage of good players but an assortment of amateurs as well.”
With nearly 6 million in chips heading into the final table, Haxton holds a nearly 1.5 million advantage over second-place Vitaly Lunkin and is in great shape to prove Joe Sebok a prophet.
The Poker Road president <a href=”http://www.pokerlistings.com/sebok-picks-pokerroads-wsop-best-bets-41465″>predicted Haxton would take down a bracelet this year in an article for PokerListings last week.
If the Lizard King can keep his composure in tomorrow’s pit of vipers, the bracelet is his for the taking.
Get full coverage of the final table in PokerListings.com’s <a href=”http://www.pokerlistings.com/live-poker tournaments/wsop“>wsop section.
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