Online poker player Taylor “tramp$d0pray” Paur and Team PokerStars Pro member Daniel Negreanu lead the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) L.A. Poker Classic after two days of play. The $10,000 buy-in tournament wraps up on Thursday.
Negreanu committed his chips with 4-3 of clubs in a major hand after a flop of 5-3-2 with two clubs. William Jesse James, who won his seat to the L.A. Poker Classic Main Event through the WPT’s subscription-based online poker site ClubWPT, held 8-3 in the hand for a better kicker, but a four on the turn improved Negreanu to two pair. The river was a king, crippling James and sending Negreanu barreling up the chip counts. In the waning moments of Saturday’s action, Negreanu scooped a pot at the expense of Benjamin Zamani with quad eights to move to 319,000 in chips.
Paur ended Day 2 with a mountain of 318,400 chips, while Negreanu was hot on his heels at 316,500. They are the only players in the WPT event to have crossed the 280,000-chip plateau. Paur’s company at Table 44 on Sunday will include Shawn Buchanan, Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire, and Victory Poker pro Paul Wasicka. A total of 186 players remain and the field will likely burst the money bubble at 72 sometime during play on Sunday. The event’s six-handed finale will be filmed for television and air on Fox Sports Net as part of Season 8 of the WPT.
Sitting in fifth on the leaderboard entering Day 3 is another PokerStars sponsored big gun, Vanessa Rousso. The GoDaddy Girl owns a stack of 221,700 and crossed the 200,000-chip threshold late in the day despite being seated a talented table alongside UB.com poker pro Annie Duke and two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Josh Arieh. Of the 186 players left in the hunt for the $1.8 million top prize, 14 are women.
2005 WSOP Main Event champ Joe Hachem was sent packing during Saturday’s action, as was Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka, who is fresh off a final table appearance in the PokerStars North American Poker Tour’s (NAPT) $25,000 High-Roller Bounty Shootout. Jaka came out on the losing end of a race with pocket sevens against Q-J of spades when a jack hit on the flop. Fellow online poker pro Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers was eliminated after running 10-8 of diamonds into pocket kings. His girlfriend, Lauren Kling, remains in the hunt and holds the 51st largest stack in the room.
Absolute Poker pro Mark Seif, who was second in chips after Day 1, currently owns the 10th spot in the chip counts. The Day 1 leader, Masa Kagawa, is right behind Seif in 11th place. Here’s a look at the top 10 on the leaderboard entering Day 3 of the L.A. Poker Classic at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles:
1. Taylor Paur – 318,400
2. Daniel Negreanu – 316,500
3. Eugene Katchalov – 279,000
4. Michael Woo – 250,000
5. Vanessa Rousso – 221,700
6. Danny Fuhs – 218,300
7. Paul Niemela – 216,000
8. John Cautela – 198,500
9. Gevork Kasabyan – 197,400
10. Mark Seif – 187,000
Other notable names in the top 50 include:
19. Steve Sung – 155,800
24. Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar – 137,400
26. Howard Lederer – 128,700
35. Shawn Buchanan – 116,300
36. Johnny Chan – 113,800
37. Lisa Hamilton – 107,400
38. Erica Schoenberg – 107,000
39. Steve Zolotow – 106,500
42. Surinder Sunar – 105,500
43. Robert Mizrachi – 104,600
All players who reach the money will take home at least $18,000 and the top nine will collect a six-figure payday. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT coverage.
