Paul Wasicka Leads Tunica WSOP Circuit Final Table

A strong performance on Day 2 left Paul Wasicka the chip leader.

The $5,500 WSOP Circuit Championship Event is down to its final table at at snowbound Harrah’s Tunica and former WSOP Main Event runner-up Paul Wasicka is the favorite to win when play resumes today.

Wasicka ran over the field all day long and amassed 454,000 chips on Day 2 to go to bed the chip leader.  Day 3 may not be so easy, though, since he’ll have two very tough players on his immediate left: two-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Dwyte Pilgrim, with 322,000 chips, and 2009 EPT Barcelona champion Carter Phillips, who has 200,000. Also still in the hunt for his second WSOP Circuit ring with 102,500 is Matt “AllInAt420” Stout, who led Day 1 of this tournament and finished in third place last year.

If he were to win Wasicka would add another accomplishment to an already impressive tournament resume. In addition to his Main Event second-place finish at the 2006 WSOP, he won the 2007 NBC National Heads-Up Championship and made the TV table of the 2007 LA Poker Classic. Regardless of his finish today, he will add his first career WSOP Circuit cash to his record.

Everyone at the final table in Tunica is guaranteed a minimum payday of $12,368. The winner of the tournament will take home $139,422, a gold WSOP Circuit championship ring, and a seat in the 2010 WSOP Main Event, while everyone else will probably wish they’d played in a bigger tournament somewhere else.