Poker Articles

The Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, California is the center of the poker world right now, as the 2008 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker event is in full swing. Monday marked Day 2 of the tournament, which saw the survivors from Days 1A and 1B combine. At the end of play, several PocketFivers remained among the 79 player field, including Marco CrazyMarco Johnson (pictured at right) and Matt mattg1983 Graham. Johnson holds the seventh largest stack in the room at 258,200, trailing chip leader Adam Weinraub’s stack of 461,900.

PocketFivesLive.com, your source for WPT coverage, is on location at The Bike tracking online players in the Legends of Poker. The tournament plays down to a winner on Thursday.

Marco CrazyMarco Johnson finished Day 2 with a 258,200 chip stack. He finished 27th in the Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic during Season V of the WPT, cashing for $50,745. He’s also found success in the World Series of Poker, capped off by a healthy $491,273 payday in a $2,000 no limit even this year, one of his three cashes in 2008. That tournament was won by PocketFiver Alexandre Allingomes Gomes. Johnson also finished eighth in a $3,000 buy-in limit hold’em event at the 2007 WSOP for $20,424.

PocketFivesLive.com tournament reporter Court Harrington talks about Johnson’s play during the second day of the Legends of Poker tournament: “Johnson has whatever it is that separates a good player from a great one. Every tournament that he enters, he seems to accumulate chips and be a contender towards the end. Even with all the respect he gets, he is still underrated.”

Matt mattg1983 Graham (pictured at left) is fresh off a WSOP bracelet win in Event #53 of this year’s World Series, a $1,500 buy-in limit hold’em shootout. He took home nearly $280,000, boosting his career WSOP earnings to $398,505. Graham finished 319th in the 2006 Main Event, cashing for $34,636; that tournament had 8,773 entrants and was won by Jamie Gold. On the World Poker Tour circuit, he took 21st in the Foxwoods World Poker Finals during Season VI for $35,126. He’s also finished in the money in the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship and PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Harrington talked about Graham’s recent play: “He has always been a great player, but in the last six months, Graham has really cranked up his game. He is playing well, running relatively well, and putting all of the pieces together.” We’ll have full updates on his progress during Day 3, which kicks off at 2:15pm today. He’ll start with 216,100 chips, the 15th largest stack in the room.

Amit Amak316 Makhija finished Day 2 with 206,600 chips, which is good for 18th overall. He won the PokerStars $100 rebuy in March for $46,425. On the same day, he finished second in the UltimateBet $200K Guarantee, cashing for $27,000. Two weeks ago, he took down the Full Tilt Poker $100 cubed (one rebuy plus one add-on) for $19,300. In tournaments that are tracked for the PocketFives.com Worldwide Rankings, Makhija has banked over $60,000 so far in August.

Jared TheWacoKidd Hamby will be among those remaining on Day 3. He’ll begin play with 89,400 chips, a bit below the average stack size of 141,000. Hamby had a deep run in the 2007 WSOP Main Event, finishing 88th and cashing for $82,476. In 2006, he took 812th in the Main Event, pocketing $15,504. He cashed four times during Season VI of the World Poker Tour, including a second place finish in the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship to Shawn Buchanan.

Here is a partial list of chip stacks for PocketFivers entering Day 3. The average stack in the room is about 141,000:
Marco CrazyMarco Johnson – 258,200
Matt mattg1983 Graham – 216,100
Amit Amak316 Makhija – 206,600
Josh pbdrunks VanDuyn – 162,200
Jared TheWacoKidd Hamby – 89,400
Zachary CrazyZachary Clark – 86,200
Matt All In At 420 Stout – 56,000
Barry barryg1 Greenstein – 40,300

Here are the top 10 overall chip stacks:
Adam Weinraub – 461,900
Matt Keikoan – 328,300
Andrew Shack – 313,000
Mark Wilds – 293,700
Paul Smith – 279,500
Justin Scott – 263,800
Marco Johnson – 258,200
Tan Le – 257,300
Max Pescatori – 246,500
Kyle Wilson – 243,100

PocketFivers eliminated on Day 2 included:
Scott r_a_y Montgomery
Ari Engel
Peter #1Pen Neff
Jason JCarver Somerfield
Devin TranquilChaos Porter
Louis MrBeeks Werman
Alvin alsmooth Zeidenfeld
Jon pokertrip Friedberg
Matt Plattsburgh Vengrin
Isaac mr. menlo Baron
Jonathan FatalError Aguiar
Shane Shaniac Schleger

Play resumes at 2:15pm PT on Tuesday. Visit PocketFivesLive.com for all of the details from The Bike in Los Angeles.