Was wondering why I couldn’t find proud Pokerati patch-wearer Whit Blanton … he’s on the feature table with an uber-tiny stack in a bad position against Jean-Robert Bellande and Phil Hellmuth. Whit starts the day with 50,500 chips, making him one of the shortest stacks to start on Day 4.

Jean-Robert ain’t too far behind with 124,500, and Hellmuth has 475,000. The chip leader at this table is Sarkis Akopyan with 858,000.

UPDATE: From Mean Gene, who is covering the ESPN table for PokerNews:

Jean-Robert Bellande Eliminated

And they’ll be showing this hand on TV, I think. Playing on the ESPN TV table Jean-Robert Bellande moved all in for his last 66,000 and was called by Sarkis Akopyan. Bellande’s [cards]As qh[/cards] led Akopyan’s [cards]tc 9s[/cards] and when the flop came [cards]Ac 2d 8h[/cards] it seemed certain that Bellande would double up.

The [cards]6s[/cards] fell on the turn and Bellande slapped his hands together and said “Yes”, perhaps thinking that he had the hand locked up. But there was some murmuring in the crowd as everyone realized that Akopyan now had a gutshot straight draw.

The was the usual dramatic pause before the river was dealt…and when the dealer placed the [cards]7s[/cards] on the felt there was a combined roar and moan from the crowd as Bellande fell to a brutal runner-runner straight and saw his Main Event come to an sudden end.

Tags: 2008-wsop, espn, jean-robert-bellande, Las Vegas, Phil Hellmuth, Sarkis Akopyan, Whit Blanton, World Series of Poker, WSOP