The LAPC main event is fixin’ to get underway … Friday at noon, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Jason Mercier, and a few others got together to hold a $5,000 fantasy draft for the main event of California’s version of the WSOP.
More to come as the field takes shape tomorrow/today Friday. Last stretch of satellites going on now.
I’ve been following this event multimedially via the 147 emails a day they send me and via the official LAPC blog.
For those Pokerati readers who missed out on what’s going on, here’s some stuff that’s happened over the past few days:
The first PokerStars.net NAPT event in the US got off to a roaring start on Saturday, with 872 players putting up $5,000 at the Venetian as part of their Deep Stack Extravaganza. 149 players started day 3 a few minutes ago, with 128 making the money. Hand for hand play has just begun, and the tournament staff is hoping to play down to 24. You can follow the action over at PokerNews, PokerStarsblog.com, or PokerListings. The winner when play ends on Thursday will collect $827,648.
Reality show star Trishelle Canatella made the final table of the WPT Celebrity Invitational, part of the LA Poker Classic currently running at the Commerce Casino. The final table will resume on March 3rd with this lineup:
Seat 1: Steve Elliott – 1,520,000
Seat 2: Thor Hansen – 1,480,000
Seat 3: Trishelle Cannatella – 1,540,000
Seat 4: Sean Urban – 2,090,000
Seat 5: Neev Baram – 1,900,000
Seat 6: LeRon Washington – 1,790,000
In other LAPC news, Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri took down his 3rd preliminary event of this year’s LAPC, winning the $2,100 Ironman event, a tournament with no scheduled breaks. Barbieri pocketed almost $60,000 for the win, plus a seat to the $10,000 Main Event, which starts February 26th.
The NBC National Heads-Up Championship is just a few days away, with the draw party on March 4th at Pure at Caesars’ Palace, followed by the tournament from March 5-7. The full list of 64 participants hasn’t been announced yet, but over 20 players already received their invite through a series of criteria, including last year’s winner, Huck Seed. Other automatic invites include: Phil Ivey, Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso, Darvin Moon, Jason Mercier, Eric Baldwin, Sammy Farha, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and Barry Shulman. One invitee who had to decline: Jeff Lisandro, who has a prior commitment in Australia which prevents him from attending.
The EPT Copenhagen event, which drew 423 entries, concluded Sunday evening with Sweden’s Anton Wigg outlasting Italy’s Francesco de Vivo in a four-hour heads-up duel to win 3,675,000 Danish kroner ($6782,918). Other notables who cashed: Roberto Romanello, Peter Eastgate, Juha Helppi, and Bertrand Grospellier.
Slow action or not … that’s what TV editing is for, and makes me think some damn good poker is being played. (Ahh, how I’ve been corrupted from back in the day when I thought every final table should be shown live in its totality.)
Seriously, can’t wait to see it on TV. You’ve got bracelets out the yin-yang. Two November Niners. The father of the November Nine’s bad-guy. An epicurean old-timer Brit. Daniel Negreanu. International flavor. Accomplished young guns. Scandis. All in the pretty cool setting that is The Casino at the Empire.
It was a sexy, if not tough field to get through, too. The in-the-money fight from four tables down to one saw Doyle Brunson, Liz Lieu, EPL soccer legend Teddy Sheringham, Devilfish, Men the Master, Hendon Mobber Ram Vaswani, Steven Z for good measure, and plenty of valid others.
(Wouldn’t it be dandy if ESPN could show maybe an hour of lead-up, with two hours of final table? Just an NFL football game, ya know?)
@JeffreyPollack’s been giving his eloquently bare-bones play-by-play.
And you can also follow via our pals at Betfair.
Click below to see a more detailed breakdown of the players of what may well be one of the most storied final tables of the year:
The main event of WSOP Europe is underway now, with a super exciting final table of poker stars. These were the starting chip counts when they took their seats:
Seat 1: Barry Shulman (1,090,000)
Seat 2: Jason Mercier (3,198,000)
Seat 3: Praz Bansi (1,160,000)
Seat 4: Markus Ristola (784,000)
Seat 5: Chris Bjorin (518,000)
Seat 6: James Akenhead (1,398,000)
Seat 7: Daniel Negreanu (438,000)
Seat 8: Antoine Saout (701,000)
Seat 9: Matt Hawrilenko (674,000)
The group consists of six previous WSOP bracelet winners (Shulman, Mercier, Bansi, Bjorin, Negreanu, & Hawrilenko), two members of the November Nine (Akenhead & Saout), and a father of a November Niner (Shulman).
More than four hours into the final table “action,” Negreanu worked his way into second place. And that’s about it. Play continues with the likelihood that someone will eventually be eliminated. Live coverage can be found on the World Series of Poker website.
Recapping the Tuesday afternoon activities, with the hope that Miami John Cernuto has a speedy recovery.
Peter Traply captured the first WSOP bracelet for Hungary, taking down the $5,000 NL Holdem Shootout , winning $348,728. Andrew Lichtenbergerfinished in second, good for $215,403. Lichtenberger thought he had the tournament won when his A-K flopped another ace against Traply’s pocket sixes. Another six on the turn doubled Traply up, leaving Lichtenberger with just 250,000 in chips out of the 7.5 million in play. Lichtenberger would double up several times, eventually regaining the chip lead. But Traply would be too much, finally knocking out Lichtenberger when his A-K dominated Lichtenberger’s A-J to the delight of his Hungarian railbirds.
Jerrod Ankenman, co-author with Bill Chen of The Mathematics of Poker is the current chip leader (1,230,000) of the $2,500 8-Game event. Earlier eliminations included Players to Watch Layne Flack (7th) and Rami Boukai (13th) Online favorite Jimmy “Gobbo” Fricke finished in 9th place to bubble the official final table. Jon Turner (another Player to Watch) is currently in second place (822,000), as he continues to impress in mixed-game tournaments.
The $1,000 Seniors NL Holdem World Championship has about 120 players remaining as they’ll try to get as close to a final table as possible before the 3 am deadline. The current leader is Tony Brenner (315,000). Barbara Enright (85,000) and Eric Hershler make up a couple of the notable names remaining. Meanwhile, Players to Watch Lloyd Shinn (130th) and Berry Johnston (185th) did make the money.
The $2,500 Razz event has author Michael Craig (126,000) the chip leader, followed by “Cowboy” Kenna James (125,000) right behind him, followed by Day 1 chip leader Warwick Mirzikinian (98,000) with 43 players remaining, only 32 getting paid. Other notables remaining include Jeff Lisandro (59,000), Player to Watch Ville Wahlbeck (47,000), and James Van Alstyne (45,000), all involved in the thrilling WSOP Player of the Year race.They will also attempt to have a final table established by the 3am deadline.
The $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem World Championship drew a field of 275 entrants, 162 of which will return from their dinner break. The unofficial chip leader is David Singer (132,000), with David Stiecke (95,000), Vanessa Rousso (93,500), Bill Edler (67,500), Eric Baldwin (56,000), and Jason Mercier (51,000) just some of the notables remaining. Four more levels remain in their day before returning at 2pm tomorrow.
The $2,500 Omaha 8 or Better event began with a field of close to 400 entries. No official chip leader has emerged, but the final Player to Watch that hasn’t been mentioned today, Daniel Negreanu is now working on his third tournament of the day, as he has already been eliminated from the Razz and Pot-Limit Holdem events. Could he go 0 for three? Check out the updates over at www.wsop.com or my morning update and find out.
255 – Ville Wahlbeck
225 – Phil Ivey
220 – Brock Parker
220 – James Van Alstyne
175 – Pete “the Greek” Vilandos
160 – Steve Sung
155 – Daniel Negreanu
150 – Jeffrey Lisandro
150 – Rami Boukai
147 – Jason Mercier
I would like to remind everybody that it’s just past halftime … so technically anyone can come out of nowhere and join this pack. But at the same time, enough events have passed that you can’t really say anyone’s just lucked their way onto the top of the POY leaderboard, as may have been the case a couple weeks ago. So this is mostly indicative of who’s really playing well.
Covering the afternoon coverage of Sunday afternoon at the WSOP:
Roland de Wolfe became the second player (after Gavin Griffin) to win poker’s Triple Crown (Winning a WSOP bracelet, WPT main event and EPT main event) with his triumph in the $5,000 PLO 8 or Better event, defeating Brett Richey in heads-up play. Dual Omaha bracelet winner Scott Clemens finished in 3rd.
Sweden’sTomas Alenius defeated Jason Tam heads-up in the $1,500 Limit Holdem event. Day 3 chip leader Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri finished 3rd. Fortunately for the WSOP staff, they have Sweden’s national anthem already downloaded.
Round 5 of the $10,000 NL Holdem Heads Up World Championship is down to its final 16 competitors, with one more round of play before the winners return on Monday. Among the survivors: Jason Mercier, Mike Caro, Leo Wolpert, Roberto Romanello, Bryan Pellegrino, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Dustin “Neverwin” Woolf, Johnny Chan and WSOP runner-up in 2008, Alec Torelli.
A larger than expected field of 436 started the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha event, with 153 returning after the dinner break. The unofficial chip leader is Jesse Rios, with another four levels of play to finish the day.
The $1,500 HORSE event started about three hours ago and a field of 770 left the starting gate. No established chip leaders at this time, but they have eight levels of play to leader going into the first turn. Check out www.wsop.com and give Pokerati a visit during the rest of your Sunday evening/early Monday morning.
I officially dropped Men the Master in exchange for Yevgeniy Timoshenko today. (Thanks, readers, for the tip!)
KevMath, how’s your scab team doing?
Here are the current standings, through 8 events:
Negreanu
77
Feldman
67
Lee
66
Seif
54
Chops
24
Pokerati
17
Smith
16
Lederer
16
Phillips
1
Wise
1
Bradley
0
Meanwhile, Lance Bradley has dropped Matt Brady for Jason Mercier, and Bernard Lee has dropped David Williams to pick up Matt Brady.
Two final tables are underway, with the $1,500 NL Holdem 6-max event down to their final 3 players. Ken “Teach” Aldridge is the current chip leader in a big hand that went down just after the dinner break. You can follow the streaming final table coverage on the Bluff Magazine website or at wsop.pkr.com. The $2,500 PLH/PLO event is down to their final 6 players. Cornel Cimpan, WPT LA Poker Classic winner in February, is the current chip leader, with Ben Grundy and Paul Parker the other notables left at the table.
The $2,000 NL Holdem event is now in the money with about 100 players remaining. Phil Hellmuth added to his WSOP record with his 70th cash, and is still going strong as the players return to their dinner break soon. Jason Mercier, T.J. Cloutier, Tom McEvoy and Tom Franklin are some of the bracelet winners who are still in the field. When the players return, they’ll be playing beat the clock to get to a final table before the 3am deadline.
The $10,000 Mixed Event World Championship is down to about 55 players remaining, with Soheil Shamseddin the leader, with Robert Mizrachi, Steve Sung, Huck Seed and Hasan Habib remaining as they’ll also attempt to get to the final table of eight by the 3am deadline.
The 12pm tournament today, $2,500 NL holdem drew a smaller than expected field of 1,088, some possibly took the day off before the $5,000 NL Holdem event tomorrow at noon. The usual rapid decimation of the field still took place, as less than 450 players returning when the 90-minute dinner break began. Alan Goehring appears to be the chip leader, with the winner taking just over $500,000 and 116 others pick up some cash.
The 5pm tournament, $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max, looks to have drawn a field of about 360. No clear leaders have been established, but check out www.worldseriesofpoker.com for updates from all six events this evening. Please.
Two players won a WSOP bracelet earlier this morning, but the vast majority of the discussion will be on Phil Ivey, who took down his 6th WSOP bracelet in Event #8 $2,500 NL 2-7 Draw Lowball. While he collected under $100,000 from this event, he surely picked up a few million in bracelet bets with his fellow poker players, recouping some of those millions he had lost last year when he made similar bracelet bet wagers. John Monnette was looking for his first WSOP title, and he did not go down quietly, as the pair were heads-up for over 3 hours. Both had each other on the ropes, but Monnette was able to double up twice to take a huge chip advantage, but Ivey battled back like he had a few million dollars riding on the result. Several pros were on the rail watching the action, more than a few hoping that the professional from San Diego, California would knock off Ivey. Unfortunately for them, Phil would double up himself to retake the chip lead, finally eliminating Monnette when his 7-6 low crushed them pocket 7’s of Monnette. You can follow all the action as it transpired last night over at Pokernews, where I also wrote the recap that will appear later this morning.
Joining Phil Ivey at the bracelet ceremony today will be Travis Johnson who took down the $1,500 NL Holdem event a few hours ago taking over $666,000 in what appears to be his first tournament cash. Might as well make your first cash include a WSOP bracelet.
Two events that weren’t able to make their final table by the 3am deadline will both return at 1pm today to play down to a champion. The scheduled event for streaming on the Bluff Magazine website is the $1,500 NL Holdem 6-max event, which is down to their final 8, who’ll be seated as listed:
Table 154:
Seat 1: Carman Cavella 1,059,000
Seat 3: Charles Furey 1,169,000
Seat 4: Bryce Yockey 1,489,000
Seat 6: Bryn Kenney 656,000
Table 155:
Seat 2: Manny Minaya 339,000
Seat 3: Praz Bansi 630,000
Seat 5: Ken Aldridge 411,000
Seat 6: Peter Gould 780,000
Page 2 for more tournament activities today:
More…
The first of three final tables has reached its conclusion as Jason Mercier took down the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event as he went on a rush when it got to six-handed to take the chip lead, beating Steven Burkholder heads-up to take down a WSOP bracelet to go along with his two EPT titles he earned in 2008. The other two final tables the $1,000 NL Holdem “Stimulus Special” as the players are about to return from their dinner break, with Steve Sung the chip leader at 8,700,000 followed by “Pete the Greek” Vilandos (5,930,000) and James Matz III (3,650,000). You can watch the conclusion of this final table on ESPN360 or http://wsop.pkr.com for those without the ESPN service. The $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship is also down to their final three with Freddie Ellis (2,330,000), followed by Eric Drache (1,435,000) and Ville Wahlbeck (495,000).
The two Day 2 events are moving towards their conclusions, one much more likely to reach a final table than the other. Twelve players remain in the $2,500 NL 2-7 Draw Lowball event, with John Monnette holding the chip leader. They’ll be playing down to a final table of 8 with Tony G, Layne Flack, Phil Ivey, David Grey and Freddy Deeb the players you’ve heard of remaining. The $1,500 NL Holdem event is currently down to about 110 players, trying to get to their final table for their Internet broadcast tomorrow at 2pm on bluffmagazine.com. People you’ve heard of remaining: Brandon Cantu, Jacobo Fernandez, Nancy Todd Tyner, Grant Hinkle, and Michael Martin.
The $1,500 NL Holdem 6-max event drew a field of 1,459 which was down to 318 after the dinner break, while the $2,500 PL Holdem/PLO event drew a field of 453 which has been whittled down to 261 as they take their dinner break. See who’s remaining in those fields over at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and I’ll be back with more stuff tomorrow.
The $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special is nearing its final table as they’re down to 13 players and may stop for the day when they reach their final table. Jeff Oakes is the current chip leader with 2,400,000. Danny Fuhs is currently 2nd. Dan Heimiller and Steve Sung are other notables who are looking to make the final table, which will either take place later tonight or Wednesday at 2pm, as the scheduled streaming of the final table has been postponed.
The $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event is working their way down to its final table tonight. They currently have 27 players remaining as they went on their dinner break. Jonathan Tare will have the chip lead when the players return, Greg Pappas is currently in 2nd, with day 1 chip leader Jason Mercier is 3rd in chips. Former bracelet winners Dario Alioto, Eric Froehlich and An Tran are some of the notables making up the final three tables.
The $10,000 7-Card Stud World Championship has 45 players remaining while they play down to their final table. The current leader is Fu Wong, followed by Greg “FBT” Mueller, Max Pescatori, Nick Frangos, Hoyt Corkins and Cory Zeidman. A recent elimination was Day 1 chip leader David Oppenheim, along with Phil Ivey, Joe Cassidy and Bruno Fitoussi being day 2 casualties, falling far short of the money that will be reached when 16 players remain.
The $1,500 NL Holdem event got underway today as a field of 2,791 entrants flooded the tournament area, causing delays in the starts of several other events. Returning on the dinner break will be 889 players, with the current chip leader is Jonathan Little, with “Minneapolis Jim” Meehan, Bertrand “Elky” Grospelier, Tiffany Michelle and Chau Giang among the notables off to a fast start. The money will be reached when 297 players remain, with the winner taking home $666,853.
The $2,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw event started as 148 players took their seats, as plenty of notables round out the field, including Greg Raymer, Erick Lindgren, John Juanda, Billy Baxter, Chino Rheem, Gavin Smith and Pokerati’s own Tom Schneider as they play eight one-hour levels tonight. Follow all the tournament’s progress at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and Pokerati for DonkeyBomber and other updates.
It’s that time of year again… Poker players descend upon SoCal for the L.A. Poker Classic, and the Commerce Casino buzzes with tournaments and cash games of all shapes and sizes. I finally made my first jaunt over there on Monday to check out the $10K HORSE event, the first of its kind at the LAPC, and was taken aback by the masses in the tournament room – 1,362 to be exact – for the $335 NLHE rebuy. Word was that the $100K guarantee was the draw, but the final prize pool was nearly $400K. The line of alternates wound through the hallways, and it took so long to thin the field that the $10K HORSE start-time was pushed back.
With Tournament Director Matt Savage running the LAPC show for the entirety of the series, all poker media was invited to cover it. Steve Hall has been there for the majority of it, providing some updates and gossip as only he can. (Personal fave: report of Nelly’s random appearance to play high-limit cash.) With the Monday HORSE event and subsequent $10K heads-up, PokerRoad settled in for their live shows, Life’s a Bluff came to pick up some interviews, and CardPlayer got comfortable for the duration to provide live updates of the major preliminaries and the main event. Word is that PokerNews will even be showing up for the main, as Savage welcomes the coverage, overruling (in most areas of coverage) the usual WPT media restrictions.
The pros have been all over the 2009 LAPC, starting with David Plastik winning Event 2, Fabrice Soulier taking Event 16, Jason Mercier Event 19, Frankie O’Dell Event 22, Jeff Madsen Event 24, and Scotty Nguyen grabbing another HORSE title in Event 29 (the aforementioned $10K event). The $10K heads-up will find its winner today, and the $10K WPT main event begins on Saturday.
Side note: Scotty Nguyen is evidently unable to win a HORSE event without controversy. CardPlayer reported that he taunted another player and began to show signs of his 2008 WSOP behavior, though he calmed down after a warning from Savage.
From CardPlayer updates:
As his chip stack has grown at this final table so has the level of Nguyen’s voice. He specifically taunted Matt Graham after he busted him in fifth place in a manner that definitely crossed the line.
Really? Damn.
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