The poker world has descended on the Commerce Casino in Bell Gardens, CA, for the first leg of the World Poker Tour‘s “West Coast swing.” The WPT L. A. Poker Classic has completed its Day One action with Scott Blackman holding a sizeable edge over pros Ali Eslami and Joe Tehan.
With late registration going until the start of Day Two on Sunday, the players slowly filled the tournament room at the Commerce. With that said, 338 players stepped up at the opening gun for action with such notable names on the felt as Allen Kessler, Phil Laak, Jonathan Duhamel, Antoine Saout and 2013 World Series of Poker Championship Event final tablist Amir Lehavot among the crowd. As the afternoon wore on, former LAPC champions such as Antonio Esfandiari and Michael Mizrachi also put their names in the mix.
Starting off with 30K stacks, the players were deliberate with their actions. Jennifer Tilly was able to push her stack up slightly over the starting level by pushing Ognjen Sekularac out of a pot, while Ryan Welch suffered from some incredibly bad fortune. He would see his pocket Aces cracked by a K-6, wasn’t able to make a draw come home and finally got his last 8000 in chips to the center with pocket eights on a 8-6-4 flop. His opponent turned up the nuts, a 7-5, and once the board failed to pair, Welch was gone.
Welch wasn’t the only player to depart the Commerce a bit early. Todd Terry also had his Aces cracked by a slow-played set and Galen Hall also would be eliminated. Jonathan Aguiar was eliminated in a set versus set situation and Ted Forrest, who had flopped a baby flush, was knocked off when his opponent outpipped him with a bigger flush. As the afternoon wore on, the numbers continued to climb in the $10,000 tournament.
By the time the end of the night came, 501 players had placed their names on the entry list in hopes of taking down one of the WPT’s venerable championships. Some of the players who got in the game – but also departed it early – included Mizrachi, Dan Shak, Andrew Lichtenberger, Joseph Cheong, Matt Salsberg, Amit Makhija and Sean Jazayeri. There were several top players who were able to build an excellent starting stack, however.
Leading the way through the Day One minefield was Blackman, who somehow was able to dodge the attention that the chip leader receives (at least for Day One) in stacking up 190,300 in chips. There are a host of top pros that are in pursuit of Blackman, although they are quite a distance behind him at this point:
1. Scott Blackman, 190,300
2. Ali Eslami, 129,200
3. Joe Tehan, 112,850
4. Daniel Steinberg, 111,000
5. J. C. Tran, 108,800
6. Corey Hochman, 106,575
7. Ryan D’Angelo, 106,000
8. Anthony Gregg, 103,775
9. Luis Velador, 100,225
10. David Paredes, 97,575
Other players lurking down the leaderboard include J. J. Liu (90,250), Eugene Katchalov (84,825), Blair Hinkle (78,550), Bertrand Grospellier (74,050) and Jesse Sylvia (69,650), who are all above the average chip stack. Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu will have their work cut out for them as they come from under the chip average.
There are 370 players remaining from the 501 starters, but that number could still grow. Although there are no re-entries in the tournament, the opportunities for players to get into the event is open until Day Two starts at noon Sunday (Pacific Time), so it is conceivable that the event may pass last year’s 517 players.
The WPT L. A. Poker Classic will continue through much of the upcoming week. The final table is scheduled for Thursday, with the eventual champion adding his (or her?) name to the WPT Champions’ Cup and taking home what could potentially be a million-plus first place prize.
