On Sunday, the money bubble popped at the L.A. Poker Classic, a stop on the World Poker Tour (WPT). Sixty-three players remain and a top prize of $1.6 million is up for grabs. The tournament will dole out the first seven-figure grand prize of Season IX and Jason “TheMasterJ33” DeWitt holds down the top spot on the leaderboard entering Day 4.
DoylesRoom pro Hoyt Corkins, a two-time WPT champion, had the dubious distinction of Bubble Boy after finishing in 64th place. Corkins ran pocket queens into the pocket kings of Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers to meet his demise and the board ran out J-8-5-4-6. Much to the elation of everyone else in the room, the bubble burst and a minimum payday of $22,000 is now at stake as play enters Day 4.
Among those making moves as play approached the bubble at the L.A. Poker Classic was Daniel Alaei. The former WPT event winner 3bet all-in before the flop with A-10 of clubs and found himself in a race against Shannon Shorr’s pocket fours. The action flop came K-Q-2 with two clubs, keeping Shorr ahead with a pair, but giving Alaei flush and straight draws. Alaei spiked a club on the turn to double up to 165,000 and ended the day in 43rd place with a stack of 172,000.
For you Sowers fans out there, don’t worry. He’s fifth on the leaderboard after three days of play at 677,000. He’ll captain Table 7 on Monday, where his competition will include Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar, Lauren Kling, and Carlos Mortensen, the WPT’s all-time money leader.
In a battle of players with plenty of World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event experience, Joe Hachem doubled up through Jason Senti near the end of Day 3. Hachem held pocket aces against Senti’s 10-9 of hearts and received a sweat when the flop came K-J-4 to give Senti a gutshot straight draw to a queen. However, the board filled out 8-3 and no upset was in store. Hachem is in 51st place out of 63 players entering Day 4 with 115,000, while Senti is in 18th with 437,000.
Here are the chip leaders entering Day 4 of the WPT L.A. Poker Classic:
1. Jason “TheMasterJ33” DeWitt – 1,023,000
2. Richard Toth – 993,000
3. James “croll103” Carroll – 843,000
4. David “Bakes” Baker – 702,000
5. Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers – 677,000
6. Shannon Shorr – 655,000
7. Matt “berkey11” Berkey – 625,000
8. Darryll “DF1986” Fish – 595,000
9. Nikolay Evdakov – 583,000
10. Carlos Mortensen – 557,000
There are plenty of high-profile pros remaining, so rather than just pick out a few, we’ve elected to list the remaining 53 players’ chip counts:
11. Bryan Colin – 494,000
12. Gregory Brooks – 480,000
13. Philippe Ktorza – 475,000
14. Dan Heimiller – 473,000
15. Derek Gregory – 458,000
16. Mike McClain – 451,000
17. Sam Iola – 441,000
18. Jason Senti – 437,000
19. Sam “KingKobeMVP” Stein – 420,000
20. Jorge Lara – 416,000
21. Dany Georges – 409,000
22. Arkadiy Stekolshchikov – 396,000
23. Allen Cunningham – 375,000
24. Michael DeVita – 371,000
25. Justin Schwartz – 352,000
26. Brandon Crawford – 339,000
27. Alex Dovzhenko – 334,000
28. Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar – 333,000
29. Amir Lehavot – 322,000
30. Steve “gboro780” Gross – 321,000
31. Nicholas Rampone – 308,000
32. Jonathan Roy – 304,000
33. Lauren Kling – 303,000
34. Randy Dorfman – 300,000
35. Kyle Julius – 294,000
36. Michael Pesek – 257,000
37. Jesse Yaginuma – 253,000
38. Luke “IWEARGOGGLES” Staudenmaier – 227,000
39. Steve Brecher – 222,000
40. Eric Houlihan – 212,000
41. Tony G – 204,000
42. Tim “Tmay420” West – 194,000
43. Daniel Alaei – 172,000
44. Matt Marafioti – 165,000
45. Joe Deniro – 154,000
46. Chris McCormack – 150,000
47. Bryan Paris – 139,000
48. Chad “lilholdem954” Batista – 130,000
49. Ty “puffinmypurp” Reiman – 129,000
50. Clayton Newman – 118,000
51. Joe Hachem – 115,000
52. Ted Lawson – 110,000
53. Konstantin Streletskiy – 99,000
54. Kenny Hicks – 75,000
55. James Doudy – 67,000
56. Juan Stizza – 66,000
57. Mack Lee – 65,000
58. Ga’bor Szamosi – 62,000
59. Kathy Liebert – 55,000
60. Michael Mizrachi – 54,000
61. Ryan “gutshtallin” Welch – 54,000
62. Scott Seiver – 38,000
63. Ted Jivkov – 17,000
Play will pick back up today at 1:30pm PT. When the money bubble popped yesterday, the blinds were at 3,000-6,000 with an ante of 1,000. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT headlines.
