During Season 5 of the World Poker Tour (WPT), Mark Newhouse took down the Borgata Poker Open to the tune of $1.5 million. Entering Day 4 of the L.A. Poker Classic, Newhouse is the chip leader and poised to make a run at his second WPT title.
Sunday marked a major day of television viewing for players remaining in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic, which is being held at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. The United States hit a last-second goal to send the gold medal game in the 2010 Winter Olympics into overtime, where Canada ultimately prevailed. By nightfall, Canadian Daniel Negreanu, who held the chip lead in the $10,000 buy-in tournament entering Day 3, watched himself take second to Barry Shulman in the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe Main Event on ESPN2.
Despite the diversions, Newhouse came out on top of the field after Day 3 with a stack of 498,000 chips. Newhouse sent Danny Wong to the rails on Sunday with pocket jacks against A-K, building his arsenal of chips up to 250,000. Newhouse started the day with a stack of 68,000 and told WPT Live Updates Hostess Jacque, “The biggest pot of the night, I got lucky. I beat two kings with A-K.” The hand occurred against Jason Smith and an ace hit on the flop to send Newhouse’s chip stack flying high.
2010 L.A. Poker Classic Heads-Up champion Chris Moore stole a sizable pot off GoDaddy Girl Vanessa Rousso during Sunday’s action. The flop came 9-4-2 with two diamonds. Rousso bet, Moore put in a raise, and Rousso called to bring a third diamond on the turn. Rousso bet 45,000 and Moore came over the top all-in for 150,000. Rousso tanked before finally folding 5-6 of diamonds for a flush face up. Moore scooped the pot and promptly turned over pocket nines for a set. Thanks in part to Rousso’s donation, Moore owns a stack of 489,000 chips entering Day 4, the second largest tally in the room.
One of the final eliminations yesterday went to Full Tilt Poker front man Howard Lederer, who was all-in with A-K against pocket queens for a classic race situation. The flop came queen-high, giving his opponent a set, and Lederer failed to catch up. Other pros who found the exit on Day 3 included Barry Greenstein, Gavin Griffin, Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar, Jason Mercier, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Steve Zolotow, Todd Brunson, and Allen Cunningham.
Play ended on Sunday with the money bubble bursting at 72 players remaining. Thomas Fuller, who had been near the top of the chip counts throughout much of the event, was the unfortunate 73rd place finisher. Fuller was all-in pre-flop with A-K, but ran into pocket aces. The flop of Q-Q-10 gave Fuller an inside straight draw if a jack hit, but the board filled out Q-7 and everyone remaining had made the money. The top prize in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic is $1.8 million.
Here are the top 10 chip counts entering Day 4 of the Commerce Casino tournament:
1. Mark Newhouse – 498,000
2. Chris Moore – 489,000
3. Masa Kagawa – 432,000
4. John Cautela – 417,000
5. Shawn Pilot – 400,500
6. Millad Jorshari – 386,000
7. Gevork Kasabyan – 378,000
8. Tim Begley – 369,500
9. Tri Huynh – 353,000
10. Dan “Wretchy” Martin – 335,000
A stacked field of 72 players remains in the hunt for the L.A. Poker Classic title. Other notable names still alive include:
15. Annie Duke – 321,000
17. Carlos Mortensen – 305,000
19. Steve Sung – 285,000
25. Eugene Katchalov – 235,000
29. Daniel Negreanu – 222,500
30. Peter “Belabacsi” Traply – 221,500
32. Johnny Chan – 218,000
35. Prahlad Friedman – 208,000
36. Hoyt Corkins – 206,500
39. Erica Schoenberg – 189,000
47. Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar – 157,500
51. Robert Mizrachi – 139,500
60. Surinder Sunar – 83,500
64. Vanessa Rousso – 46,000
69. Jon “PearlJammer” Turner – 31,500
72. David “Bakes” Baker – 17,000
Sunday also marked the beginning of the $25,000 High-Roller tournament, whose top prize is $425,000. Twenty-three players remain in the event, with Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger and Daniel Alaei out in front after one day of play.