Day 5: End of the road for area players as World Series of Poker heads down the stretch
As the remaining players drive toward the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event, area players saw their tournaments end Friday.

One level into Day 5 on Saturday afternoon, just 230 of the original 7,221 players remained in the 2017 $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold-em championship at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

The top area finisher was Peoria native Mike Knobloch of Lake Forest. The 38-year-old trial lawyer finished 499th for $24,867, the second career WSOP for the 1996 graduate of Richwoods.

Morton’s Ty Reiman finished in 876th place, earning $16,024 — his sixth in-the-money finish of this WSOP and first career cash in the Main Event.

Goodfield native Jameson Painter limped into the money late Thursday, his sixth in-the-money finish of the series. After taking just 17,000 in chips into Day 4, he doubled up a few times before eventually finishing in 978th for $15,000.

You can follow along with written updates at wsop.com. A live stream is available on Pokergo.com from 3-8:15 p.m.; a subscription is required. (A full schedule of stream and broadcast times is listed alongside this story).

Through one level Saturday, only seven players who list their hometown in Illinois remain in the field: Hiren Patel (Carol Stream), Freddy Hamad (Danvers), Ryan Leng (Wheeling), Michael Cloud (Lombard), Josh Tieman (Chicago), Connor Drinan (Arlington Heights) and Aaron Massey (Elmwood Park).

If you know of any other players with area ties, please email whuett@pjstar.com.

The Main Event money bubble broke just before play ended early Friday morning, about 3 a.m. Peoria time, assuring every entrant at least $15,000. The payouts increase the longer a player remains in the event. The winner receives $8.15 million, and all nine players at the July 20-22 final table will receive at least $1 million.

Knobloch now has two career WSOP cashes, adding to his 16th-place finish in a $1,000 buy-in hold-em event last year.

Reiman, 29, has more than $3 million in career tournament earnings. His biggest score came in 2010, when Reiman earned $1.75 million for a runnerup finish in the main event of the European Poker Tour’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. He now has 197 documented tournament cashes, according to cardplayer.com.

Painter, a 34-year-old University of Illinois graduate, has six cashes this series, including second- and fourth-place finishes. All but three of his career 32 tournament cashes for $623,259 have come at the WSOP, where he has eight career top-10 finishes.