WPT CHAMPIONSHIP: GALEN HALL SET TO BECOME PTPR #1 RANKED PLAYER AGAIN

PHOTO/SOURCE: WPT.com

Not many people knew the name Galen Hall before the start of the 2011 poker season. Five month later and Hall is about to become (for the 2nd time this year) #1 on the 2011 PTPR Tournament Player of the Year Leaderboard.


Hall, who won the 2011 PCA back in January, was the first #1 ranked player of 2011. Hall then scored points at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars Main Event and most recently at the EPT Madrid High Rollers event.

Hall has 157 PTPR Points this year and is assured of a minimum of 57 points this event, this means he will finish this event with a minimum of 214 PTPR Points, 4 points ahead of current leader Ali Eslami.

Eslami had a great start to this event, but faded as the days went by.

Scott Seiver is right behind Hall, with 5.07M chips to Hall's 5.09M.

Final table play continues Friday. You can follow live updates on WPT.com.

Final table seating assignments/chip counts:

Seat 1. Galen Hall - 5,095,000 (84 BBs)
Seat 2. Justin Young - 1,750,000 (29 BBs)
Seat 3. Tony Gargano - 3,550,000 (59 BBs)
Seat 4. Roger Teska - 3,600,000 (60 BBs)
Seat 5. Scott Seiver - 5,075,000 (84 BBs)
Seat 6. Freddy Bonyadi - 2,470,000 (41 BBs)


WPT PLAYER OF THE YEAR UPDATE: Sam El Sayed was the dominant chip leader for the longest time on Wednesday, then, a big race was lost to Justin Young and El Sayed could not recover, finishing 8th. A fourth place or better finish and El Sayed would have become the 2010-11 WPT Player of the Year. Andy Frankenberger wins the honors.

WPT SUPER HIGH ROLLERS 100K BUY-IN EVENT UPDATE: We are in the money at the SHR 100K event - another High Rollers final table for Erik Seidel. He is joined by Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren and chip leader Vivek Rajkumar. Justin Bonomo was eliminated fifth, collecting over 224K in the process.


Tune into WPT.com for live tournament updates.


PTPR GRAND SLAM EVENT
World Poker Tour World Championship
WPT World Championship
May 14-20, 2011

Bellagio Hotel Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Buy-in: $25,500
Prizepool: $5,309,500
Entries: 220

Defending Champion: David Williams

POINTS AT STAKE:
1st position 152
2nd position 92
3rd position 77
4th position 67
5th position 62
6th position 57
DAVID PETERS 52
SAM EL SAYED 47
SHANNON SHORR 37
NENAD MEDIC 27
DANIEL ALAEI 22
ASHTON GRIFFIN 20
STEVEN KELLY 20
DAVID WILLIAMS 20
WILL FAILLA 17
JOSH BERGMAN 17
CHRISTIAN HARDER 17
TOM MCCORMICK 14
ABE MOSSERI 14
KWINSEE TRAN 14
HARALABOS VOULGARIS 10
DAVE "DEVILFISH" ULLIOTT 10
ALAN STERNBERG 10
DOYLE BRUSON 7
JONATHAN LAYANI 7
KENNY TRAN 7
MATT HYMAN 7