Bodog Beat

Poker pro Gavin Smith is one of the final nine at the WSOP Circuit event in Rincon, CA. (Bodog Beat Image)

It took less then six hours to narrow the field from the 27 that started Day 2 to the nine remaining players who would make up the final table of the Rincon WSOP Circuit Event. Of that final nine, there are two players who are no strangers to running deep at major poker tournaments, Gavin Smith and Lee Watkinson.

Watkinson and Smith both made final tables at the 2007 WSOP, Smith in the $1,500 Pot Limit Holdem event and Watkinson in the $10,000 buy-in Main Event. Watkinson then added another major tournament final table appearance a couple of weeks ago at the 2008 Borgata Winter Poker Classic, in which he finished fifth.

Both of these guys will have an uphill climb to catch current chipleader Ed Sabat, but they both defintely have a fighting chance. Neither one is the absolute short stack, but Smith is pretty close while Watkinson has just above average.

Here are the final table chip counts:

Edward Sabat – 854,000
Kenny Bedoya – 701,500
David Peters – 442,000
Lee Watkinson – 337,000
Gavin Smith – 197,500
Damien Oborne – 124,000
Michael Pickett – 121,000
Cristian Avendano – 96,500
Jon Eaton – 75,000

Play resumes at 5pm ET and will play down until the $229,002 first-place prize is awarded.

Bodog Poker 2008 WSOP online poker qualifiers