A field of 745 players turned out for the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) L.A. Poker Classic on Friday, representing a 7% year over year growth. When the chip shuffling and bad beats ended for the day, 477 poker hopefuls remained. Ben xthesteinx Zamani sits as the fourth largest chip stack at 115,000, while Marco CrazyMarco Johnson holds down the fort at #24 with 72,125. Heading into Day 2, Masa Kagawa leads the way with a pile of 124,575 chips. The top two players will pocket more than $1 million.
Early on, Jared TheWacoKidd Hamby (pictured at left) was sent packing from the $10,000 buy-in WPT tournament. Hamby committed his chips with pocket rockets on a flop of K-9-6, but ran into pocket kings and top set. The turn and river both blanked for Hamby, who was eliminated on the spot. Then, Carter ckingusc King busted Matt Hyman also by cracking pocket aces with pocket kings. The flop came K-2-2, giving King a boat, and he never looked back. Despite his early success, King did not survive the day.
Kevin BeL0WaB0Ve Saul (pictured at right) was not as fortunate with pocket kings against pocket aces. Saul doubled up poker pro Jennifer Tilly with cowboys against Tilly’s aces as the board ran out J-4-3-9-2. Saul dropped to below 10,000 chips as a result and could not find the finish line on Day 1. In the latter portion of the day, Bryan badbeatninja Devonshire came out on the winning end of a race holding pocket tens against A-K. One ten hit on the flop and another came on the turn to give Devonshire quads. He finished the day with the 397th largest stack at 12,525.
Heading into the tournament, the buzz was over a three-way prop bet with PocketFives.com member Joe JoeSebok Sebok (pictured at left), Full Tilt Poker pro Gavin Smith, and two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Jeff Madsen. Sebok had his aces cracked and was the first member of the trio to be eliminated. His punishment: ink a tattoo of both Smith and Madsen’s faces somewhere on his body. Meanwhile, Madsen hit the rails next and must now get a tattoo of Smith’s smiling Canadian mug. Smith barely squeaked through Day 1 and will start Saturday with just 4,350 chips, the second smallest stack in the room.
Sebok told new WPT Live Updates Hostess Jacque on Friday how the abnormal prop bet came about: “Two years ago, Gavin (pictured at right) and I had a different tattoo bet. It was a last longer bet. He lost and had ‘J.S.’ tattooed on his back. For some reason, we felt like that wasn't enough. To get another man's initials tattooed on your back wasn't enough.” J.S. stands for Joe Sebok. The PokerRoad head is also the host of the UB.com sponsored poker news program “Poker2Nite,” whose second season will air on cable station Versus beginning on Wednesday.Suckouts and tattoo prop bets aside, here are the top 10 chip stacks entering Day 2 at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles:
1. Masa Kagawa - 124,575
2. Mark Seif - 122,025
3. Charles Dolan - 120,500
4. Benjamin xthesteinx Zamani - 115,000
5. Naoya Kihara - 104,100
6. Chansung Choi - 100,350
7. Shawn Buchanan - 100,225
8. Hieu Luu - 98,250
9. Cary Katz - 97,475
10. Eugene Katchalov - 95,675
PocketFives.com members who appear in the top 100 on the chip counts include:
24. Marco CrazyMarco Johnson - 72,125
26. Taylor taypaur Paur - 71,275
32. Darus BejoMas Suharto - 68,275
39. Peter Belabacsi Traply - 64,200
41. Jimmy gobboboy Fricke - 63,075
46. David Bakes Baker - 60,725
50. Matthew mlagoo LaGarde - 59,250
56. Jon PearlJammer Turner - 56,375
57. Yevgeniy Jovial Gent Timoshenko - 56,050
74. Scott stpauli111 Hall - 49,775
89. Jon sketchy1 Eaton - 46,100
When play ended on Friday, the blinds were at 150-300 with a 25 ante. The top 72 players will finish in the money and the tournament’s winner will pocket $1.8 million. Stay tuned to PocketFives.com for the latest WPT L.A. Poker Classic coverage of online poker players.
Canada
United Kingdom
Costa Rica
Australia
Mexico
Denmark
Russian Federation
Sweden
Brazil
Germany
