Paren Arzoomanian leads UKIPT5 Isle of Man Final Table

If you've been in the Isle of Man this week you'll know that this tournament has been billed as 'PokerStars Official Home Game.' Tomorrow there's a strong possibility that the UKIPT5 Isle of Man Main Event trophy will not only be staying on the island, but also taking up residency in PokerStars HQ.

Three players in the final eight call the Isle of Man home and they include the chip leader. When play restarts at noon tomorrow Paren Arzoomanian, who works in Poker Room Management for PokerStars, will be the one sitting with the biggest stack. He'll start with 2,257,000 and a lead of some 25 big blinds over his nearest challenger.

The 31 year-old, who is originally from Sydney, is no office boy who dreams of giving up the day job to play poker, this is a professional poker player who gave up the day job to work for PokerStars. Before he did though he'd ticked off the 'win a major poker tournament' lifetime achievement. In 2009 he won the ANZPT Sydney Main Event for a staggering A$ 246,500 ($174,186). He played this tournament last year too and finished 35th for £2,000. If he wins tomorrow he'll cash for over 13 times that as first prize is £26,600. He's not the first PokerStars employee to go deep in this event with Chris Jonat (4th, 2013) and Ian Marmion (11th, 2014) the standard bearers.

This is how the final table shapes up:

To learn a bit more about the final eight click here.

The nearest challenger to Arzoomanian when play begins at noon tomorrow will be a player who knows what it's like to make a final table in this event. Back in 2013 Dan Stacey finished sixth here and will be hoping to do better than that tomorrow. He was near the top of the chip counts for much of the day and had that potent combination of winning lots of small pots and then holding up in the big pots that mattered.

His aces held in a sizeable pot against Scott Byron's pocket kings and he won a 1,600,000 pot with tens against ace-king pot to eliminate Nick Smith in 13th place. He was the first player to breach the two million chip mark before falling back to an end of day 1,714,000.

With ten one hour levels scheduled today the general consensus was that play would probably end with around 10-12 players left, but despite play being deep throughout when the final level of the night started just 11 players remained. That soon became nine when Christopher Knights (11th) and Joe Grech (10th) were eliminated.

When the unofficial final of nine started it was James Walsh who was the shortest. The Irishman had just over seven big blinds to his name, whilst Craig Sewell was next in the firing line with a stack of 17 big blinds and it would be he who blinked first.

His open shove with pocket eights was called by Michael Fletcher with [As][Qh] the [Qd][4d][7s][Jc][9c] board connected with Fletcher's overcards and ended play for the day.

The exit of Sewell in ninth was, of course, the second important bubble to burst today in the Main Event and Sewell would be involved in both incidents. At noon local time 97 hopefuls returned knowing that only 47 of them would be leaving with something to show for their efforts. By the time the tournament was down to the bubble, the likes of Christin Maschmann, Kelly Saxby, Daragh Davey, Dara O'Kearney, Team PokerStars SportStars Fatime Moreira de Melo and Team PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker had hit the rail.

Moreira de Melo's exit meant that she was denied a UKIPT5 Isle of Man hat-trick, having finished in the money in both previous Isle of Man Main Events.

The clock was paused with 48 players left but there would be no painful wait for those clinging to a few big blinds as on the very first deal of hand for hand play Dylan Coady, who works for PokerStars as the VIP Club Manager, lost a coin-flip to exit in the most painful spot in a poker tournament. The Canadian three-bet all-in with [Ac][9c] but lost the race against Sewell's pocket sixes.

The bubble burst at 3:20pm local time but it would take over eight hours to reach the final table during which plenty of names and notables cashed but crashed: Luke Staudenmaier, a former poker pro turned PokerStars employee, was first out in the money earning £770. He was followed shortly later by Diego Gomez, the enigmatic Spaniard picked up the same payout for his 45th place finish. The last UKIPT champion in contention was also the last UKIPT champion as Bristol winner Pierrick Tallon battled his way to a 31st place finish, which earned the Belgian an Isle of Man flag and £990.

It was also two UKIPT Main Event cashes in a row for Deborah Worley-Roberts. The American, who now lives Brighton, followed up her 18th place finish in Bristol with another deep run before busting out in 28th place for a cash of £1,057.50. Adrian Filiczkowski started in pole position today and the Day 1 chip leader managed to make the money but not the final table as he finished 26th, David Clarkson secured his fourth UKIPT Main Event cash of the Season but he'd probably trade them all for one deeper run as he added a 25th place finish to previous 42nd, 31st and 42nd place cashes on the tour.

David Hill was the Isle of Man's best performer in Season 4 as he finished third in the Main Event and he racked up another cash this time round before falling in 20th. The Irish contingent has been a bit thin on the ground at this event but one of their best, David Lappin, scored another UKIPT Main Event cash and his highest finish to date before departing in 19th.

To catch up on all today's action click the links below, join us for Sunday's final table which starts at noon, here's a reminder of what they're playing for:

Levels 13-16
Levels 17-22
Prize pool and payout information

All photos are copyright of Mickey May, don't steal them, it's bad for your hygge.

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