Jon "Skalie" Kalmar Takes His Seat at the WSOP Final Table

July 16 2007, Tony Bromham

After 16 hours of "Day 6" play, the WSOP Main Event has entered the critical home run. Nine players have made it through to the Final Table with a guaranteed $525,934 in their pockets. Jon Kalmar from the UK has one of the biggest chip stacks!

On the sixth day of intense and drawn out poker, Kalmar wrenched his poker play into top gear and floored the pedal. From 17th position out of the remaining 36 at the start of the day with a chipstack of 2,665,000, he ended it with over 20,000,000. Inevitably, he needed to pick up a couple of key pots on the way. The major one that went his way was described in our Pokernews.com Live Update Service as follows:

"There's a dead button. Kenny Tran in the cutoff raises to 350,000; Jon Kalmar is in the small blind and calls. Lee Watkinson is in the big blind and folds.

The flop is and Kalmar checks. Tran bets 500,000 and Kalmar calls.

The turn is the . Kalmar checks. Tran bets 1,300,000 and Kalmar calls.

The river is the . Kalmar is all in. Tran thinks for a very long time and Kalmar finally calls the clock. With four seconds to go, Tran calls and Kalmar shows for the rivered flush. Kenny Tran is out. Kalmar is up to 17,000,000 -- the chip lead."

Later on, Kalmar eliminated a small stack when his AA met AK.

It could have turned out so differently. Kalmar was very close to leaving Las Vegas without even playing the main event. It seems that he decided to take one last shot at winning a seat by playing a super-satellite multi-table tournament. He finished in the top 17 of that event to win his seat and booked a few more nights at the hotel!

As the picture shows, Jon has appeared in the last couple of days kitted out in Full Tilt Poker paraphernalia, presumably a welcome perk for appearing on TV tables.

Another player at the final table is Philip Hilm, a Dane who lives in the UK. He too has a mountain of chips. Hilm has some good history in EPT tournaments.

The WSOP Champion from 1998, Scotty Nguyen, busted out in 11th place to complete a successful campaign this year with several excellent cash finishes.

Here is the full final table line-up for Event 55: WSOP Championship (courtesy of Pokernews.com Live Updates) by both preliminary chip count and seat position. Kalmar is in Seat 1 and Hilm in Seat 3 so it won't be easy for Kalmar to steal the blinds as Seat 2 is also well-stacked:

By Chip Count

Seat 3 - Philip Hilm (Denmark) 22.07 million

Seat 6 - Tuan Lam (Canada) 21.315 million

Seat 1 - Jon Kalmar (UK) 20.32 million

Seat 5 - Raymond Rahme (S Africa) 16.32 million

Seat 2 - Lee Childs (USA) 13.24 million

Seat 8 - Lee Watkinson (USA) 9.925 million

Seat 9 - Hevad Khan (USA) 9.205 million

Seat 4 - Jerry Yang (USA) 8.45 million

Seat 7 - Alex Kravchenko (Russia) 6.57 million

By Seat Order

Seat 1 - Jon Kalmar (UK) 20.32 million

Seat 2 - Lee Childs (USA) 13.24 million

Seat 3 - Philip Hilm (Denmark) 22.07 million

Seat 4 - Jerry Yang (USA) 8.45 million

Seat 5 - Raymond Rahme (S Africa) 16.32 million

Seat 6 - Tuan Lam (Canada) 21.315 million

Seat 7 - Alex Kravchenko (Russia) 6.57 million

Seat 8 - Lee Watkinson (USA) 9.925 million

Seat 9 - Hevad Khan (USA) 9.205 million

The final table prizes are:

1. $8,250,000

2. $4,840,981

3. $3,048,025

4. $1,852,721

5. $1,255,069

6. $956,243

7. $705,229

8. $585,699

9. $525,934

After the long day, the players will be thankful of a day off. The final table commences on Tuesday 17th July at 12 Noon PDT, which is Tuesday evening in Europe.

Follow all the action at the final table via the "Live Reporting" tab at the top of this page, or click this link

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