Olivier Busquet Dominates Day 4 on the way to the WPT Final Table

WPT Borgata Poker Open, Day 4 Recap

By BJ Nemeth

With a quicker-than-expected Day 3, there were concerns that Day 4 would run long as a result. But once again, the bustouts came quickly at times, and play ended around 11:00 pm ET for the fourth straight day — that might be the first time in my career as a tournament reporter that every non-final table day ended at almost the exact same time. Score one for scheduling on the part of the Borgata staff, even with a record WPT field of 1,018 players.

The biggest personality in the room belonged to Maurice Hawkins, who rose to prominence in this tournament late in Day 3 as he took the chip lead and busted quite a few players in the process. He was lively at the table and very talkative, but it just wasn’t meant to be today.

Hawkins had a pretty good first few hours, and was talking about how he was happy with an average stack, hoping to make his move at the final table. But in his last 45 minutes things weren’t going his way, as he lost a few pots and then moved all in with A-Q, and ran into Olivier Busquet’s A-A. Hawkins was stunned after his elimination in 13th place, though he did earn $28,218 for his $3,500 buyin.

As it turned out, the player who followed Hawkins’ strategy of making a late push was Olivier Busquet, who waited until the final table before he dominated the leaderboard. With seven players remaining, he doubled through Michael Brown in a huge pot — Busquet had trip jacks and moved all in, and Brown thought he was bluffing. That hand catapulted Busquet to the chip lead, and he never relinquished it, finishing with more than 10 million.

Michael Brown never fully recovered from that bad read, and two hours later he was eliminated in seventh place on the TV bubble.

Here’s a look at the chip counts for the final six:

1.  Yanick Brodeur  –  5,780,000
2.  Keith Crowder  –  2,750,000
3.  Jeremy Brown  –  5,480,000
4.  Olivier Busquet  –  10,350,000
5.  Kenny Nguyen  –  600,000
6.  Ivan Mamuzic  –  5,655,000

And the prizepool they’re playing for:

1st:  $925,514
2nd:  $453,519
3rd:  $251,955
4th:  $216,681
5th:  $188,126
6th:  $156,212

The televised WPT Final Table begins tomorrow (Thursday) at 4:00 pm PT, and if you’re in the Atlantic City area it’s free to come down to the Borgata and watch it live. If you can’t make it here in person, be sure to return to WorldPokerTour.com for complete live coverage of every check, bet, call, raise, and fold.