Day 2 of the L.A. Poker Classic, currently being contested at the Commerce Casino near Los Angeles had a somewhat shorter run than day one, with play commencing at 3.30 Sunday afternoon and the action over by midnight on the same day. Nevertheless it was sufficient time to see more top players hitting the rail, and in one case a side bet involving a rear end tattoo being won.
Although Joe Sebok entered the fray as chip leader, he fell on hard times and at one time looked as if he might lose his side bet with pro Gavin Smith…that whichever exited first would have the other’s initials tattooed on his butt. In the event, it was Smith who will face the needle after he moved all in with A 10 at the 3 hour point, and his challenger’s pocket kings held.
But there wasn’t a lot of levity in the squad of poker pros who were out of the tournament by the dinner call – Mike Matusow, Mark Newhouse, Kathy Liebert, Young Phan, Robert Mizrachi, Paul Darden, Tony Ma, Shane Schleger, Phil Laak, and Chad Brown all hit the rail.
23 year old young gun from Bodog Ari Engel strood out with aggressive and skilful play throughout, but the action went up a gear or two late in the evening when Sebok and J.C. Tran contested one of the biggest hands of the day with over $80 000 in the pot. Sebok bet $50 000 which Tran reraised all in, and Sebok called, only to be beaten by Tran and bundled out of the competition.
By play’s end at midnight Tran was clearly leading with an (unofficial) stack of around $540 000, comfortably ahead of other survivors who included Ari Engel, Sean McCabe, Lee Markholt, Joe Tehan, Can Kim Hua, Scott Clements, Strasser, Nam Le, Paul Wasicka, Chris Bell, Bill Edler, Giang, Gene Todd, Kristy Gazes, Isaac Haxton, Prahlad Friedman, Steve Dannenmann, Ted Forrest, Nenad Medic, Greg Mueller, Steve Brecher, Shannon Shorr, Joe Awada, Michael Mizrachi, and Barry Greenstein.
Among the better known casualties of Day 2 were Tex Barch, Erick Lindgren, Eric Lynch, Chris McCormack, John Cernuto, David Chiu, Todd Brunson, David Levi, David Plastik, Kevin Saul, David Oppenheim, Joe Pelton, Kido Pham, Mark Gregorich, Isabelle Mercier, Patrik Antonius, and Freddy Deeb.
The World Poker Tour L.A. Classic started Saturday with a record field of 791 players, each of whom anted up the $10 000 buy-in to take part. By the end of Day 1 play, there remained 368 players with their eyes on the winner’s prize of $2.4 million. The top 54 players this year will be in a ‘money bubble’ of a total prize pool worth over $7.9 million, which makes the 2007 L.A. Poker Classic the largest $10 000 buy-in event in the history of the World Poker Tour.