Day 1c of the £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem event drew a field of 185 players, with the 25 survivors joining the 55 day 1a and 1b players with chips Monday at 2pm to play down to the final table. 54 players will make the money with the winner pocketing £133,857. The day 1c chip leader is Frenchman Leonard Truche with 42,400 in chips. Other notables returning: WPT winner Tommy Vedes – 27,200, and Allen Kessler 12,700. Day 1c players with chips and payouts available at wsop.com.
Elsewhere …
WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: 729 players turned up for day 1b of the $3,300 Main Event, creating the largest field for a WPT event (1,040), beating the record set at last year’s Borgata Poker Open. WPT Live Updates and the Borgata Poker Open blog are both handling updates.
PokerStars APPT Auckland :: New Zealand’s “Godfather of hip-hop” Danny ‘Brotha D’ Leaosavaii defeats Tom Grigg to take down the title for over $123,000. – PokerStarsBlog.com has the final report.
A few fledgling careers getting a bankroll boost, a couple accomplished players cementing their stati as big-time pros, and one not-so-old legend proving (to himself?) he’s still got something … all in the last two weeks of October:
Tommy Vedes
Festa al Lago (Bellagio)
Las Vegas
New Yorker Tommy Vedes has been on a cross-continental tear — with 9 cashes, 6 final tables, and 2 wins in the past four months for more than $1.7 million in tournament winnings — at events in Las Vegas, London, Cyprus, Tunica, and Thackerville, Okla. His run may or may not have culminated this month with a made-for-TV WPT victory against a pro-heavy 275-player field in the $15k Festa main event.
Check out Vedes’ lifetime stats
Howard Lederer
Festa al Lago (Bellagio)
Las Vegas
New York émigré @howardhlederer may have been starting to doubt himself upon realizing he had only two wins in 25 WSOP final tables, and no victories anywhere in nearly two years. Fortunes changed with the latest $10k HORSE event in Las Vegas, kinda an “old school” tourney (19 entries, $92k top prize) that Lederer self-covered on Twitter.
Read why the Professor should always be your official “pick to win it”
Isaac Baron (“westmenloAA”)
Caesar’s Palace Classic
Las Vegas
Confirmed online tournament bad-ass showed he could close it out live in LV by winning the $5k main event at Caesar’s for a $250k payday. The 22-year-old beat a tough final table, too, bettering Theo Tran, Jimmy Tran, Kathy Liebert, and 2008 EPT Grand Final Champ Glen Chorny — a rematch of sorts, as Baron finished 4th at that final table.
More on Isaac Baron’s continuing climb
More…
Short jokes aside, “the little corporal” of poker is on a Napoleonic quest to dominate the poker world … or at least the WPT.
The WPT Festa al Lago final table gets underway this afternoon/eve (4pm PT). After all the early tourney hubbub about super-late registrations and related blind structures, the final table looks not unlike just about every other WPT final table — with one well-known pro, one kinda-sorta known pro (Vedes), and four other guys.
Freddy Deeb is the chip leader going into today’s action, but not by much. This is Deeb’s fifth WPT final table (out of 70 appearances) and stands to be his third win, which would tie the WPT bracelet record currently held by Gus Hansen. Deeb also has two WSOP bracelets to his name.
The Festa al Lago final table, by chip count, with seats yet to be drawn:
1. Freddy Deeb – 3,840,000
2. Shawn Cunix – 3,670,000
3. Tommy Vedes – 2,990,000
4. Craig Crivello – 2,570,000
5. Jason Lavallee – 2,045,000
6. Jason Burt – 1,375,000
You can follow the play-by-play at WorldPokerTour.com or via PokerListings here.
