Thomas Boivin opened to 325,000 to leave himself with less than that behind. The action folded around the Vanessa Kade in the big blind.
"You look very pretty today," Boivin said with a cheeky grin as Kade peeled her cards.
"Awe, thank you — Wait, you're saying that because it's my turn to act!" Kade said. "Now I feel like I have to raise."
Kade raised to put Boivin all-in and he called off for his tournament life.
Thomas Boivin:
Vanessa Kade:
The flop came to give Kade the lead with a pair of aces but to give Boivin hope with a pair of nines. The board finished out to give the pot to Kade and to send Boivin out in 10th place for $145,755.
Boivin's elimination marks the end of Day 5. Stay tuned for a full recap of the day's events.
The penultimate day of the 2022 Wynn Millions Main Event wrapped up on Thursday after three hours of play, and in a tournament that attracted a total of 1,075 runners, who generated a $10,105,000 prize pool, only nine players remain in contention for the $1,655,952 first-place prize.
Vanessa Kade bagged the chip lead with a stack of 10,355,000 at the end of Day 5, while Alex Livingston (9,000,000) isn’t far behind. Tony Tran (6,145,000) rounds out the top three.
2022 Wynn Millions Final Table
SEAT
PLAYER
COUNTRY
CHIP COUNT
BIG BLINDS
1
Tony Tran
United States
6,145,000
102
2
Tony Sinishtaj
United States
4,470,000
75
3
Vanessa Kade
Canada
10,355,000
173
4
Alex Livingston
Canada
9,000,000
150
5
Neng Lee
United States
300,000
5
6
Isaac Kempton
United States
4,345,000
72
7
Roland Shen
United States
2,875,000
48
8
Michael Stembera
United States
3,835,000
64
9
Sean Perry
United States
1,700,000
28
Tony Sinishtaj (4,470,000), Isaac Kempton (4,345,000), and Michael Stembera (3,835,000) will begin Friday's final day in the middle of the pack. Kempton started Day 5 as chip leader and lost some chips overall, but will still have a healthy stack going into the final day.
The bottom three stacks were bagged by Roland Shen (2,875,000), Sean Perry (1,700,000), and Neng Lee (300,000), who will begin the final table as the clear short stack with five big blinds, while the average stack heading into the finale is just under 80 big blinds.
The day began with 16 players, and moved swiftly with a double knockout to eliminate Shankar Pillai (16th - $94,272) and Debbie Lee (15th - $108,602). Livingston had picked up aces and held against his opponent’s inferior pocket pairs to soar up the leaderboard.
United Kingdom’s Daniel Moran (14th - $108,602) was next to make his way to the payout desk after running into Tran’s rockets, and Ian Matakis (13th - $125,326) made his exit after calling on each street with his top pair, while Kade triple-barreled and rivered a straight.
Another double knockout occurred near the end of the day as Shaun Deeb (12th - $125,326) and France’s Sylvain Loosli (11th - $145,755) fell short of the final table, with Livingston again being on the winning side of it with his pocket nines.
Belgian Thomas Boivin (10th - $145,755) was the chip leader at the end of Day 3 and just missed out on the final table, after getting his short stack in with king-nine against Kade’s ace-jack and failing to improve to the winning hand.
The final day will begin with 86:00 remaining in Level 25 with blinds at 30,000/60,000/60,000, and although the nine contenders already have $171,280 locked up, all eyes will be on the $1,655,952 first-place prize and the glamorous Wynn Millions trophy.
Stay tuned as the PokerNews live reporting team will be back tomorrow to bring you updates of the final table action.