WSOP 2018: Five begin attempts to halt Michael Dyer’s wrecking ball

It’s official: the vacuum cleaner crews are out and Las Vegas’s army of de-riggers have been woken from hibernation. The Pavilion Room at the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino is now empty and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is drawing to its conclusion.

It’s not entirely done. Oh no. There’s a $50,000 buy-in High Roller underway, the One Drop won’t start for another few days, and the monumental “Closer” tournament just started too offering anyone with $1,500 another chance at striking gold.

And then there’s the Main Event. Ah yes, the Main Event. Let nobody forget the Main Event, which will have been the first exposure to the WSOP brand that 99 percent of poker players and fans will have ever had.

WSOP 2018 Main Event final six (l-r): John Cynn, Tony Miles, Nic Manion, Aram Zobian, Michael Dyer, Joe Cada

This year’s renewal is down to its final six players, and the plan for Friday’s action in the Amazon Room is to rid us of three of them. Here’s a reminder of who was involved at the beginning of this final table. And here’s how they stack up now.

Day 9 counts

Returning to blinds of 500,000-1 million

Name	Country	Chips/Payout
Michael Dyer	USA	156,500,000
Nicolas Manion	USA	72,250,000
John Cynn	USA	61,550,000
Tony Miles	USA	57,500,000
Joe Cada	USA	29,275,000
Aram Zobian	USA	16,705,000
Alex Lynskey	Australia	7th – $1.5 million
Artem Metalidi	Ukraine	8th – $1.25 million
Antoine Labat	France	9th – $1 million

The most unlikely of all double dreams remains on for Joe Cada after the 2009 champion was one of the few players able to stay largely out the way of Michael Dyer’s wrecking ball yesterday.

Dyer’s demolition job yesterday was almost unstoppable as he pushed each one of his competitors around for the duration of yesterday’s play. While Antoine Labat, Artem Metalidi and Alex Lynskey are not returning, both Nicolas Manion and Aram Zobian come back this evening with fewer chips than they started yesterday. Cada, John Cynn and Tony Miles added a few, but Dyer has been dealing in death.

Play is due to resume in the Amazon Room at 5:30pm today, and they’ll be playing as long as it takes to get down to three. With nearly 400 big blinds between them, don’t expect this to be over any time soon.

Previous final table reports

• Dyer has day to dream of
• Party shifts from Amazon Room as Lynskey departs
• Metalidi takes the fall as Zobian hits twice
• Labat killed by the kings that once saved him

Selected previous 2018 WSOP coverage: