Like Marvin Rettenmaier, Ran Azor has been here before. Back in 2009, Azor entered the $25,000 WPT Seventh Annual Five Star World Poker Classic in Las Vegas and ended up on the final table with the likes of Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier, Christian Harder, Shannor Shorr and Scotty Nguyen. Azor finished second to Timoshenko, in that event, earning a staggering $1,446,265 for his runner-up spot. He will be desperate to join the WPT Champions Club and is in great shape as a late surge, yesterday, took him to the top of the chip counts.
Artur Voskanyan is the dark horse of this final table. The 34-year old from Russia does not have much live form, but has been playing superb poker. In fact during yesterdays play, Voskanyan, was not responsible for any of the 12 eliminations and has earned his chips through some well timed value bets and great post flop poker.
Voskanyan's biggest pot came against the then chip leader Kiryl Radzivonau. Voskanyan nailed a in a three bet pot holding and managed to take a huge chunk of change off the young Belarusian that sets him up nicely for the final table.
Lynn Gilmartin spoke with Voskanyan during a break yesterday:
Is there anybody in the world playing more consistent poker than Marvin Rettenmaier right now? The man known as the 'Mad One' is continuing his trend of improving his live tournament cashing record year-after-year since 2009. This year alone he has already won over $1.6 million in live tournament earnings and joined the PartyPoker team of sponsored pros.
In May, Rettenmaier won the WPT Championships in the Bellagio for $1,196,858 when he defeated Philippe Ktorza in heads up play. This hands him the opportunity to make history as the first ever back-to-back WPT Champions. Nobody has been in this position before and incredibly Rettenmaier had to do it by climbing up the chip charts from rock bottom. He was down to as low as 140,000 chips after being bluffed off a huge pot by Sam El Sayed, but the German remained composed, played like a true champion and now starts the day third in chips.
At one stage in the tournament, yesterday, Kiryl Radzivonau was in danger of running away with this. A very composed young man, whom you will find wandering around the tournament area a lot, was literally taking the game apart at the seams reaching close to 3 million chips at one point.
But towards the end of the day the rest of the players started to catch the 26-year old, married, father of one and he finished the day fourth on the leaderboard. Radzivonau is ranked in second place in the all time money list for Belarusian players with $207,193 in live tournament cashes, and this casino is a favourite stomping ground of his cashing no less than 14 times in events held here.
Radzivonau also has online form with a Sunday Million victory on his resume for $175,000.
Victor Paraschiv is a 35-year old professional poker player from Romania. Paraschiv has been in the game for five years and currently ranks 22nd in the Romanian all time money list with $149,105 in live tournament cashes.
Paraschiv first got into poker after watching a PartyPoker TV commercial and thought he would give it a try. His largest cash to date is $135,000 after besting a field of 114 entries in an event held in this very casino.
In level 22 Paraschiv doubled up through the then chip leader Walid Bou Habib when he put it all on the line v . Then in level 23 he rivered a flush in a hand against Ran Azor to give himself well over a million chips and enough breathing space to cruise to the final table.
The great thing about poker is the many different playing styles that it incorporates. One such style is The Rock. The player who is so tight that they only play a few hands per hour. It doesn't matter where you are in the world or what level you play at, each final table has one. The man who has somehow managed to avoid trouble and double up when it matters. At the final table of the WPT Merit Cyprus Classic our rock is 41-year old Joseph El Khoury from Lebanon.
El Khoury has been playing poker for seven years and is the owner of a tourism company. He found himself at the final table courtesy of two double ups at timely moments in the game. First he doubled through Ran Azor v and then later doubled through Victor Paraschiv on a jack high board v .
El Khoury's best performance to date is a 16th place finish at the 2009 WPT Merit Cyprus Classic where he cashed for $17,300 meaning that whatever happens today he is guaranteed to receive the biggest poker payday of his career.
This is it, the final six players are just arriving, all hoping to become the WPT Cyprus champion and pick up the $287,784 for 1st place. Israel's Ran Azor is the current chip leader but the big story is obviously Marvin Rettenmaier, he won the $25,000 WPT World Championship back in May and he's looking to become the first person to ever win back to back WPT's, a true feat.
It's going to be a difficult final table for the German though, apart from the short stack Joseph El Khoury, the rest of the chips are finely balanced between the players, all of whom have been chip leader at some point during the tournament.
We'll be starting at 1pm and because this event is being live streamed, it's going to be slightly more difficult than usual to get all the action. Nevertheless, we'll do our absolute best and bring you all the details from the first riffle to the last river!
in a three bet pot holding 
and managed to take a huge chunk of change off the young Belarusian that sets him up nicely for the final table.
v 
. Then in level 23 he rivered a flush in a hand against Ran Azor to give himself well over a million chips and enough breathing space to cruise to the final table.
v 
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