After its buy-in was slashed from $10,000 to $5,000, the 2010 installment of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Legends of Poker attracted 462 players. Last year, a total of 279 entered, meaning that the field grew by 66%. However, the total prize pool of the marquee WPT event dipped from $2.63 million to $2.15 million, a fall of 18%.
The top 45 poker players will finish in the money, with the top spot scheduled to pay out $750,000. Last year, poker rapper Prahlad Friedman banked a little over $1 million after besting World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event November Niner Kevin Schaffel heads-up. Todd Terry, Toto Leonidas, Sam “KingKobeMVP” Stein, and Mike Krescanko also made the final table in 2009.
Nearly 300 players – including 16 former WPT champs – took to the felts on Saturday for the second of two starting days in the Legends of Poker, which emanates from the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. The day began with WPT officials honoring Kathy Liebert, who was playing in her 100th WPT tournament. According to the WPT’s website, Liebert is the female record-holder for most final tables made with six, most cashes logged with 15, and most money won with $1.75 million. However, she lacks a WPT title.
Despite the fanfare, Liebert was eliminated late in the day, as was Lock Poker’s Matt “All In At 420” Stout. The internet player dropped his stack with A-J of diamonds against Shawn Buchanan’s pocket sevens to hit the rails. UB.com pro Phil Hellmuth, meanwhile, took a three-hour dinner break on Saturday and returned to chat it up with fans rather than play cards. He finished the day with a stack of 66,850, or 167 big blinds, good for the 50th largest tally in the room entering Day 2.
PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu lodged a particularly memorable Day 1B. Negreanu dropped to 10,000 in chips after running into a royal flush and eventually hit the rails after his A-J fell to 8-2. On the latter hand, the flop came A-2-3, giving his opponent bottom pair, but another deuce on the turn and an eight on the river didn’t help matters.
Joe Sebok and stepfather Barry Greenstein have both made waves in the WPT Legends of Poker, entering Day 2 in 17th and 19th places, respectively. Also vaulting up the leaderboard on Saturday was Allen Cunningham, who tripled up to 90,000 after cracking pocket aces and pocket kings by flopping a boat. Cunningham candidly Tweeted following the monster pot, “Holy Macintosh, I just flopped a full house vs AA and KK to triple from 30K to 90K.”
Here are the top 10 players in the WPT Legends of Poker entering Day 2 on Sunday:
1. Manuel Reyes – 205,350
2. Vinny Vinh – 180,000
3. Raymond Dolan – 165,500
4. Justin Young – 138,950
5. Max Casal – 138,500
6. Micah Raskin – 135,000
7. Philip Stark – 132,575
8. Ari Goott – 129,000
9. Ken Michelman – 125,200
10. C. Zadfar – 125,000
Other players remaining in the top 50, including their chip counts, include:
17. Joe Sebok – 108,650
19. Barry Greenstein – 100,675
32. Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar – 78,125
33. Soi Nguyen – 77,250
36. Allen Cunningham – 76,500
37. Tom “Kingsofcards” Marchese – 76,350
39. Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson – 75,225
45. Jeff Madsen – 70,800
47. J.J. Liu – 70,700
50. Phil Hellmuth – 66,850
Day 2 kicks off at 1:00pm PT on Sunday from The Bike, with 241 players remaining in the hunt for the WPT title. The Legends of Poker will crown a winner on Wednesday.