Two days of poker are complete from the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, California. The World Poker Tour’s Legends of Poker enters Day 3 on Tuesday. Play starts at 2:15pm PT from The Bike and features the 79 players who have survived to see Day 3. The chip leader after Day 2 was Adam Weinraub, who also paced the field on Day 1A. Weinraub is no stranger to success on the World Poker Tour; he won the WPT Celebrity Invitational during Season V, cashing for $100,000. The winner of the Legends of Poker event will be crowned on Thursday from The Bike and will take home $1.1 million.
Weinraub told WPT Live Updates Hostess Amanda Leatherman in a video posted on the WPT’s website, “I had a great table. We got to see a lot of flops and small pots. I chipped my way up and made a couple of aggressive moves at the right time. I got involved in a 150,000 chip pot and bet 25,000 on the river. I missed my flush and was called by ace-high, which put me back down to around 160,000 chips.” Weinraub finished the day with 461,900 chips after a nice rebound from his busted flush. He has 40% more chips than the second place stack.
Play will conclude on Thursday with the six-handed WPT final table. Weinraub noted that, although he’s chip leader now, “Being the chip leader today is not as important as being the chip leader on Thursday.” Chasing him is Matt Keikoan, who sits with 328,300 chips, good for second place. He finished ninth in the World Poker Open during Season IV of the WPT, cashing for $44,050. Keikoan also took home $56,615 for his 23rd place finish in the WPT Championship during Season III. He won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in 2008, taking down a $2,000 No Limit event (#7) for $550,601. He finished 63rd in the 2007 Main Event for $154,194, but will have his work cut out for him to overcome Weinraub’s massive chip lead.
Mark Wilds has the fourth largest chip stack entering Day 3 at the Legends of Poker; it weighs in at 293,700. He finished 19th in the Legends of Poker event during Season III. He made the final table of Event #6 of the 2008 WSOP, a $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better tournament, cashing for $30,700. Wilds made a charge during the 2008 Main Event, finishing 77th for $77,200 and boosting his career WSOP earnings to over $285,000.
The online poker world will recognize Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson’s name atop the Legends of Poker leader board. The man who was at the center of uncovering the scandal at Absolute Poker finished Day 2 with 258,200 chips, the seventh largest stack in the room. Johnson cashed for $50,745 in Season V’s Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic on the WPT circuit. He took home nearly $500,000 by finishing second in Event #48 of the 2008 WSOP, a $2,000 buy-in no limit event; winner Alexandre Gomes pocketed $770,540.
Poker pro Max Pescatori also has a top ten chip stack entering Day 3; it weighs in at 246,500. Pescatori is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner who won the $2,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha tournament during the 2008 World Series of Poker for nearly a quarter of a million dollars. He took down a $2,500 No Limit event during the 2006 WSOP for his first bracelet, cashing for $682,389 in the process. Lifetime, he has earned nearly $1.2 million from WSOP and WSOP Circuit Event tournaments. He also has five WPT cashes to his name for a total of $140,000.
Others making the field on Day 3 include Mark Seif (242,600) Erick Lindgren (221,700 chips), Antonio Esfandiari (200,900 chips), Gabe Kaplan (195,100 chips), Erik Seidel (195,100 chips), Layne Flack (189,500 chips), and Allen Cunningham (187,400 chips). Play resumes at 2:15pm PT from The Bike.
