Day 3 for the World Poker Tour’s Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, CA, is in the books with Aaron Kweskin at the head of the final 15 players left. Perhaps more impressive than Kweskin’s run to the top is the presence of actor Bill Fagerbakke, known for his portrayal of “Dauber” on the long-running situation comedy Coach; Fagerbakke is currently inside the Top Ten and has an honest shot at making the six-handed WPT final table.
74 players came back on Thursday to continue the festivities with Michael Wang sitting atop the field with his 832,000 chip stack. There were plenty of familiar names that were looking to hunt him down, however. Such players as J. C. Tran (574K), Freddy Deeb (414K), Amit Makhija (264K), James Calderaro (483K) and Tom Marchese (361K) and others were spread around the nine tables that remained.
The first order of business was in getting to the money. Two players had to be eliminated before the final 72 could claim any of the prize money and the participants achieved that goal rather quickly. On the very first hand of play, Tim Anders moved all-in from the middle of the pack for 48K in chips and Frank Rusnak attempted to isolate him with an all-in of his own for 150K off the hijack. In the cutoff, Arkadi Onikoul looked down and liked what he saw, making the call of Rusnak as the rest of the table got out of the way. Once that was taken care of, the three men unveiled their cards:
Anders: A-6 off suit
Rusnak: pocket Jacks
Onikoul: A♥ K♥
The Q-3-2 rainbow board brought no help to anyone and kept Rusnak in the lead, but his dreams of a triple up were dashed when a King came on the turn. With Anders now drawing dead and Rusnak needing one of the final two Jacks in the deck, the river Queen kept Onikoul in the lead and knocked off both Anders (74th place, $0) and Rusnak (73rd, $0) to bring the remaining 72 players to the money.
With everyone now guaranteed at least $7583, the knockouts came quickly. The elimination on the bubble boys wasn’t enough to keep Onikoul in the tournament as he departed in 54th place. He was joined by others such as Joe Kuether, Sam Barnhart, Aaron Mermelstein, Danny Fuhs, Allen Kessler, Calderaro and Makhija all before the dinner break.
After the sustenance, 37 players returned to the action, looking to get down to two tables of players before calling it a night. Liu found a key double up when she was caught an unnecessary full house against Kalpesh Kika that kept her in the tournament for a little bit longer, but it was Kweskin who began his run about this same time. In one hand, he was able to mount that charge that pushed him to the overall chip lead for the day.
Alexander Farahi opened up the betting from under the gun and he found a dance partner in Kweskin, who called off the button. David Chase three bet the action from the small blind to push out Farahi, but Kweskin still wanted to dance and made the call. A 5-5-3 flop brought a bet from Chase and a call from Kweskin. On the ten on the turn Chase found another bullet, but Kweskin once again responded with a call. A three completed the board and ignited the fireworks.
Chase would move the remainder of his stack into the center (roughly 370K), making the pot worth more than a million chips. After deliberating his reply, Kweskin didn’t believe him and made the call. Chase showed pocket rockets, A♠ A♥, but Kweskin had cruelly run down Chase’s pocket pair with his pocket tens for a turned full house. With the addition of Chase’s stack to his own (Chase left in 35th place), Kweskin had almost 2.4 million in chips and wasn’t seriously challenged for the remainder of the night.
The other story of the day, Fagerbakke, quietly watched his chip stack climb throughout the day as he demonstrated some adept play that kept him out of trouble. In a hand against former WPT champion Griffin Paul, Fagerbakke was able to force the former champ out of a hand when a third diamond came on the turn with a timely all-in move. This, among other excellent actions, allowed him to be one of potential challengers to Kweskin when action continues this afternoon (Pacific Time).
1. Aaron Kweskin, 2.8 million
2. Michael Wang, 2.765 million
3. Mike Shariati, 2.6 million
4. Igor Zektser, 2.135 million
5. Duey Dong, 1.6 million
6. Stan Jablonski, 1.58 million
7. Bill Fagerbakke, 1.55 million
8. Alexandru Masek, 1.37 million
9. Freddy Deeb, 1.27 million
10. Brent Roberts, 1.22 million
11. Joseph Cheong, 1.185 million
12. Craig Chait, 1.185 million
13. Spike Le, 895,000
14. Griffin Paul, 780,000
15. Chris DeMaci, 665,000
