Legends of Poker

Home
Online Casino Real Money
World Poker Tour
WPT Archives
2010 World Series of Poker
WSOP Archives
Poker on TV

Legends Of Poker
WPT Season 7

The Bicycle Casino
August 23 - August 28, 2008

WPT Legends of Poker -- Day 1A

The Legends Of Poker tournament participants for Season 7 will each receive $30,000 in chips for their $10,000 entry fee. There will be 6 rounds of play to determine the new champion. Day 1 will be split into 1A and 1B followed by Day 2, 3, 4, with the final table being played out on Day 5. Each level played will be 90 min in length with blinds beginning at 50/100. The goal is to survive 5 levels of play and make Day 2.

Seen at the tables were last year's champion Dan Harrington, with others who made that final table such as Lee Markholt, Joe Sebok and David "The Dragon" Pham. Others include Raymond Davis, Erick Lindgren, Vanessa Rousso, Jeff Madsen, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Vinny Vinh, Hasan Habib, John Cernuto, Lee Watkinson and Dutch Boyd. Official count reached 161 players.

Joe Sebok won't make the final table this year as he busted out on the first level before the first break! Following Joe were Ted Lawson going out on level 2 play, Michael Woo and Vinny Vinh. Others who made the cut were Max Pescatori with 68,000 chips, Jeff Madsen with 67,700, Erick Lindgren 67,000 and Chad Brown having 66,700 in his stack. Not a lot of action took place today, but when it did, most did not hesistate to use their stacks as weapons of mass destruction.

When the midnight hour came, there were 105 players left in the field that made the Day 2 cut. Day 1B will begin at 2:00 pm PST tomorrow. Here are the top players from Day 1A with chip counts:

  1. Adam Weinraub -- 150,000 chips
  2. John Smith -- 132,000 chips
  3. Alvin Ziendenfeld -- 86,000 chips
  4. John Phan -- 83,000 chips
  5. Scott Montegormery -- 73,500 chips
  6. Gavin Griffin -- 71,500 chips
WPT Legends of Poker -- Day 1B

Tournament action began at 12 noon for the 212 who entered on Day 1B. That brings the total to 373. First place will have over 1 million US dollars for the new champion. Seen at the tables were Michael Binger, Chris Ferguson, Ralph Perry, John Hennigan, Maria Ho, Kathy Liebert, David Chiu, David Williams, Phil Laak, Scott Clements, Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Tilly, Mark Seif and Can Kim Hua. As with yesterday, players began with 30,000 in chips.

A lot more intensity came out than did on Day 1A. Early bustouts include Phil Ivey, Daniel Alaei, Jennifer Tilly who unfortunately met up with bad luck from the word go and Scott Clements. Ivey stated he had to be somewhere in a few hours and decided to just go in blind with his stack. It worked for two hands, but on the third his blind hand (3 4 offsuit) met with another player who had pocket Kings.

Others who left the tournament were David Williams, Gavin Griffin, Ralph Perry, Justin Bonomo and Chris Ferguson. But Ali Eslami turned on the turbos and ended up chip leader with 168,000 in his stack.

Others who made the Day 1B cut were Maria Ho with 83,000 chips, Barry Greenstein with 82,000, Tommy Le having 73,000 and Kelly Kim with 72,000. There were 140 who survived the Day 1B round. We will put up the final table payout information tomorrow. Day 2 will begin at 2:00 pm with the field playing for 6 levels.
  1. Ali Eslami -- 168,000 chips
  2. Mark Seif -- 97,000 chips
  3. Sabyl Cohen-Landrum -- 96,000 chips
  4. Allen Cunningham -- 94,000 chips
  5. Freddy Deeb -- 93,000 chips
  6. Mark Newhouse -- 88,000 chips
WPT Legends of Poker -- Day 2

Day 2 saw 248 players come back to the tables for another round of No Limit Hold'Em. Blinds began at 200/400 and 50 ante. The bustouts continued with Kenna James, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Scott Montegomery, last year's champion Dan Harrington, Theo Tran, Vanessa Rousso, Phil Laak, Brandon Cantu and Danny Wong leaving the tournament. Fireworks went off when Layne Flack was given a penalty for dropping the F-bomb during play, but a bad thing got worse as he then told the official "F*** Y**!" and other choice explicatives. His total amount of penalty time we have no idea of, but the sushi bar he ended up in had to have cleared out quickly. Lee Watkinson, Gabriel Thaler, Dan Shak and Michael Binger also busted out in level 8 play.

Payouts will go to the top 36 finishers with a nice $1,091,428 going to the champion. Final table cash can be seen below.

When the clock reached 12:30 am, the remaining 82 players bagged their chips and went to get some sleep so they can be ready for another round of play.
  1. $1,091,428
  2. $563,320
  3. $281,645
  4. $246,450
  5. $211,245
  6. $176,035
WPT Legends of Poker -- Day 3

The goal is to play down to 27 players and stop for some rest which you don't get much of playing in tournaments. One of the first to go was Matt Stout. He stated that there was no way his top set was going to beat a Royal Flush, so it was easy to see how he left this event. Kelly Kim who will be playing in November at the WSOP Main Event Final Table busted out as well. Kathy Liebert went all-in with pocket K's against A K and wouldn't you know another Ace came on the flop, sending Kathy to the sidelines. Following her was Toto Leonidas, Gabe Kaplan, Mike Wattel, Daniel Negreanu who's pocket 9's lost to the flush hand of Robert Chung, Antonio Esfandiari and Barry Greenstein.

Trong Nguyen busted both Erick Lindgren and Tuan Le on the same hand! Lindgren had pocket K's and Le had Q 10 with Trong having pocket 7's with one being a diamond going into the hand. Trong saw the poker gods smile on him when the remaining 4 cards for a diamond flush came up. Kyle Wilson busted David Chiu with quad 9's and Max Pescatori had his pocket 8's run into the pocket J's of Zachary Clark.

At midnight, the magic number of 27 was reached and everyone called it a day.
  1. Paul Smith -- 946,000 chips
  2. Amit Makhija -- 842,000 chips
  3. Layne Flack -- 807,000 chips
  4. Lee Markholt -- 779,000 chips
  5. Matt Keikoan -- 744,000 chips
  6. Ron Jenkins -- 740,000 chips
WPT Legends of Poker -- Day 4

The battle for the final table began at 2:00 pm. First to go in 27th was Ben Fineman who had his pocket 6's crushed by the pocket J's of Zachary Clark. Allen Cunningham had his K Q put to rest by the pocket J's of Amit Makhija. Maria Ho who played well this tournament went home in 23rd after meeting with the full house (9's/8's) of Kyle Wilson. Lee Markholt finished in 13th position when he ran into the full house (5's/6's) of John Phan.

But the recepient of the bad beat of the day went to Layne Flack who finished 8th. In a hand with John Phan, Layne moved in with all his chips holding pocket A's and was called by Phan with pocket 7's. Unfortunately for Layne a 7 came on the flop AND ANOTHER came on the turn giving Phan quad 7's. Ouch! The brutality came to an end when Matt Keikoan was busted in 7th after his meeting with the paired Kings of Zachary Clark. Here are the players and chip counts going into the final table:
  1. Amit Makhija -- 3,225,000 chips
  2. John Phan -- 2,415,000 chips
  3. Zachary Clark -- 2,025,000 chips
  4. Kyle Wilson -- 1,425,000 chips
  5. Paul Smith -- 1,130,000 chips
  6. Trong Nguyen -- 980,000 chips
WPT Legends of Poker -- Final Table

Well the play got underway at 4:00 pm with blinds at 30,000/60,000 and a 5,000 ante. One hour into the action Kyle Wilson shoved his chips to the middle holding pocket K's and John Phan did the same having A J. Kyle's hopes were dashed when an Ace card came on the flop, giving Kyle a 6th place finish. Trong Nguyen hit a full house doubling up his chips to 1.3 million, but still left in a 5th place finish a few hands later when his all-in move with K Q suited fell to the flush hand made by Amit Makhija. And Paul Smith finished 4th after his set of 7's made on the flop were run over by the 10 high straight made by John Phan. In a bizzare hand, Zachary Clark went in with K 2 offsuit and was called by Amit Makhija with A 6 of clubs. Another Ace card on the turn sealed Clark's fate and ended up with him walking over to pick up the winnings for 3rd place.

So the heads up began with Amit Makhija 6,440,000 in chips and John Phan 4,760,000 in his stack. John Phan really changed up his style by taking long times to raise, call or fold and challenging virtually every hand that was played. In all, the heads up took over 3 1/2 hours to finish. Chips went back and forth with both players doubling up at times. On the last hand, Makhija went all-in with K 7 of diamonds and Phan calls with pocket 3's. The dealer provided the following Q 5 5 on the flop, A on the turn and 10 on the river which gave John Phan two pair (3's and 5's) along with the championship.
  1. John Phan -- $1,091,428
  2. Amit Makhija -- $563,320
  3. Zachary Clark -- $281,645
  4. Paul Smith -- $246,450
  5. Trong Nguyen -- $211,245
  6. Kyle Wilson -- $176,035

Contact Us | Site Map 2 | Gamble For Free