The last player picked in the National Football League draft is traditionally awarded the dubious title of “Mr. Irrelevant.” There’s no such nickname for the last player to miss out on the World Series of Poker money bubble, so we’ll just have to call him what his mama does: Reza Kashani. The 31-year-old amateur, who only took up the game a year ago, was sent packing by the sole surviving 2010 November Niner in this year’s tournament, Joseph Cheong. While Kashani won’t cash in 2011, he will get next year’s buy-in paid for by the WSOP, which makes the poor bastard who was eliminated just before Kashani (Dylan Linde) the real Mr. Irrelevant.
Of the 852 players that began Day 4, just 378 remain. Manoj Viswanathan is your chip leader at 2.115m, with WSOP-C National Champion Sam Barnhart (1.925m), Plus Heinz (1.887m), Stephane Albertini (1.867m), Daryl Jace (1.849m) and Lars Bonding (1.813m) not far off the pace. Day 3 leader Patrick Poirier is still alive, but saw his chips whittled down to 400k. Day 1 & 2 leader Ben Lamb tripled his Day 3 stack, finishing Day 4 with 1.268m. Despite having the unenviable task of being seated at Lamb’s table, Amanda Musumeci finished the day as the frontrunning female at 1.064m, with Claudia Crawford not far behind at 986k. Vanessa Rousso was not so fortunate, busting out in 511th place.
Phil Hellmuth and Berry Johnston both finished just out of the money, while the other remaining ME champ, Robert Varkonyi, was ousted in 514th place. Other notables who won’t be returning at noon PST on Saturday for Day 5 include Humberto Brenes, Jeff Madsen, Jake Cody, The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon and 2011 bracelet winner Darren Woods.
