La Sengphet Leads 2011 WSOP Minor League Championship

pic: David Clark @PLOGrinder

Don\’t wanna say too much because, you know, don\’t want any cooler-jinx factor in play … but La Sengphet is the chip leader going into today\’s action for the WSOP-C National Championship. 97 players started … (three no-shows) … 35 remain. Top 10 ITM, $300k FTW.

We\’ll save for later discussion of there being more Pokerati patches in the field than Full Tilt wearers … as well as jokes about Allen Kessler and the EV of a 97-way chop. For now, the story putting at least a few butterflies in stomachs in and around Caesars Palace … from WSOP.com powered by PokerNews:

Headlining today\’s field is La Sengphet with an amassed 165,000 mainly courtesy of a huge call with second pair on a four-club board on one of the final hands of the day. Only two other players sit in the six-figure club with Huy Nguyen (122,700) and Jonathon Poche (121,400) snapping at Sengphet\’s heels.

Charles \’Woody\” Moore (95,100), Curt Kohlberg (94,600), Doug \’Rico\’ Carli (72,800), Bernard Lee (70,900), Dwyte Pilgrim (36,300) and Allen Kessler (23,100) are just a handful of notables still in contention for capturing the $300,000 first prize and coveted gold bracelet.

Traci Brown (the only other woman to qualify for this event) and Pokerati pal Josh Evans are also still alive — though both small-stacked with about 33,000 chips and a chair.

Blinds are 600/1,200 + 200 as play gets underway right about now 20 minutes ago!

They play down today to a final table of 9. Follow along here.