Day 4 of the 2013 World Poker Tour (WPT) L.A. Poker Classic is in the books and just 18 players remain of the 63 who started the day. Londoner Toby Lewis has the lead with 1.816 million chips, followed by Paul Klann with 1.581 million. The leader going into the day, Jeremy Ausmus, was stagnant, seeing his stack increase from 1.014 million to just 1.053 million.
This could be setting up to be the deepest Lewis has ever gone in a major event, as his previous best finish was 11th in the 2011 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em Championship. He also has two 13th place finishes, one in the 2012 WSOP $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Mixed Max Event and one in the 2012 WSOP Europe €10,000 Main Event. He has one other lifetime cash on the World Poker Tour.
One of the most interesting hands of the day occurred during Level 21 with only 24 players remaining. Bruce Kramer, sitting in middle position, raised pre-flop to 50,000 chips. The table folded around to Benjamin Zamani in the big blind, but before he could make a move, Kramer inexplicably flipped over his cards, showing everyone that he had J♣-J♥. Well, “inexplicably” is probably the wrong word here, as Kramer did have an explanation for what he did: he thought everyone had folded. In either case, Zamani was now at a huge advantage and he decided to three-bet to 130,000. Kramer thought about it briefly and called.
Both players checked the Q♥-7♦-3♦ flop and saw the Q♠ come on the turn. At this point, Zamani threw out 150,000 chips, prompting Kramer to take his time, thinking about his next act for about three minutes. Impatient, Danny Fuhs called the clock on Kramer. The clock countdown got down to ten seconds before he finally decided to call the bet. The routine was the same on the river, as after the 6♠ was dealt, Zamani bet 260,000 and Kramer tanked again. Fuhs called the clock after only two minutes this time. Kramer was eventually forced to fold as he ran out of time and his hand was declared dead.
The rest of the table desperately wanted to see Zamani’s cards, so much so that David Tuthill asked the floor how much of a penalty he’d receive if he just reached over and grabbed them (he’d have to sit out two rounds). He eventually made a deal with Zamani, giving him $200 to reveal his hand. It was two red Aces.
Upon reading about the hand on PokerNews.com’s live updates, poker player Jonathan Aguiar tweeted, “Just read the exposed JJ vs AA hand, I cannot believe Danny Fuhs called the clock twice in that hand if those amounts of time are accurate.”
Play just recently got underway in Day 5 as the field will work its way down to the final table by the end of the night.
2013 World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic – Day 4 Chip Counts
1. Toby Lewis – 1,816,000
2. Paul Klann – 1,581,000
3. Paul Volpe – 1,562,000
4. Benjamin Zamani – 1,380,000
5. David Tuthill – 1,086,000
6. Jeremy Ausmus – 1,053,000
7. Blake Barousse – 954,000
8. Garrett Greer – 793,000
9. David Fong – 733,000
10. Bruce Kramer – 731,000
11. Alexander Venovski – 675,000
12. Naoya Kihara – 654,000
13. Randy Ohel – 646,000
14. Andrew Whitaker – 436,000
15. Gary Lent – 399,000
16. Jesse Yaginuma – 373,000
17. Daniel Fuhs – 333,000
18. Michael Winnett – 300,000
