David Singer Ends the Day with the Chip Lead

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

Day 1 Recap The L.A. Poker Classic is consistently one of the largest World Poker Tour events of the season and this year’s championship event at the Commerce Casino is no exception. A grand total of 665 players each put up the $10,000 buy in to create a total prize pool of $6,384,000. The final seven tables will walk away with at least double their buy-in and the first-place finisher will be the 85th poker-made millionaire of the WPT, taking home nearly $1,600,000. The top pros all came out for one of the most popular events on tour, and the numbers were so large that five tables were forced to start downstairs in the high-stakes poker room. Additionally, due to a shortage of tables, some of the players in the second floor ballroom were forced to play on specially made tables for shorthanded games like stud and Chinese poker. The result of which was nine uncomfortable players waiting hours for the leg-room relief of a table break. Even though about 25 players busted in the first of the 90-minute levels, only one of them was a notable professional. It took just four hands for Shane “shaniac” Schleger to be eliminated at the hands of Noah “fouruhaters” Schwartz. Both players have a WPT final table this season and are fan favorites of the online community. Schwartz made the best possible full house on the river to make Schleger’s stay a short one. Schwartz hung on to most of his chips throughout the day to finish with close to 50,000. Gus Hansen, who won this event in 2003, did not make an appearance in today’s field, but the other four past champions did make the trip. Of the four former champions, Antonio Esfandiari (2004), Michael Mizrachi (2005), Alan Goehring (2006) and Eric Hershler (2007) all managed to survive the day. The close proximity to the Hollywood Hills brought out at least a few stars. Montel Williams, Jennifer Tilly and Rick Solomon were all spotted throughout the day, although the majority of the rich and the famous will have to wait until the WPT Invitational on March 1 to make their debut. It was a long and slow grind for most of the field. After five levels had passed, play ended for the night and the bagging and tagging began. The notable players that finished the day with a slightly heavier bag included David Singer (137,400), Theo Tran (112,575), Justin Bonomo (77,125), Antonio Esfandiari (118,000) and Anna Wroblewski (116,550). Play will resume tomorrow at 12:30 PST where the approximately 450 remaining players will start with blinds of 200-400 with a 50 ante and play six more levels.

Antonio's Bet with Kimberly, Thoughts on Wine, and Interview Advice

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

There's Always Tomorrow

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

Steve "MrTimCaum" O'Dwyer - Pro Blog

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

The final level of the day went very smoothly for me, I basically chipped up by just stealing the blinds a bunch, ending the day at 54,950. No showdowns or any hands of interest/consequence, just lots of preflop raises that took down the blinds. Most of the level, Antonio was getting a massage so he just seemed to uninterested in playing back at me, although near the end of the level he warned me that he wasn’t going to roll over anymore so I had to scale back my operations for the rest of the day, especially since he won two gigantic pots in the last 20 minutes where people donated above average stacks to him. Overall I’m happy with my play today and cannot complain about coming back to a stack over 125x BB tomorrow. Hopefully I get another good table draw and continue to play well. Also, I figure I should introduce myself to readers who might not be familiar with me, since I’m not the most recognizable name out there, especially since I did one of these pro blogs for the Bellagio Five Diamond main event back in December and never said anything about myself. I’m a 25 year old professional from Philadelphia, PA, currently living in Las Vegas. I moved to Las Vegas shortly after graduating from East Carolina University with a BS in Communications, where I had been working in the radio industry prior to discovering poker. I was making great money for a 22 year old and decided to give poker a shot after graduating, moving to Vegas in March of 2006. Since then, I’ve improved my game tremendously, learning from some of the very best of the online community, namely Jeff Garza, Aaron Been, Vivek Rajkumar, Leo Wolpert, Kush Patel, Scott Seiver, Ike Haxton, Jason Sommerville, Alex Venovski, and many many others. I began playing many of the major live tournaments starting with the 2007 WSOP, where I had 4 cashes including a deep but disappointing run in the Main Event. Since then I’ve played in many of the WPT prelims and main events, and I’ve also started to switch my day to day focus to heads up no limit cash games, mostly playing 3/6 and some 5/10 with a ton of success. I really enjoy grinding heads up more than any other form of poker, and really hope I become one of the more well known heads up specialists in the future. Hope this was an enjoyable read, really pumped up to come back tomorrow and have another strong day. - Steve

WPT Online Satellite Winner - Sasja Velander

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

Day 1 Ends

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

Day 1 has come to an end and the players have left the room. David Singer ended the day with the chip lead, holding 137,400 when play stopped. Chip counts and the end of the day recap will be posted soon. Day 2 will begin at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow and there will be six levels of play.

Two Late Eliminations

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

JC Tran and Lee Watkinson have both busted out of the tournament late on day 1.

Magic Hand

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

Antonio Esfandiari just doubled up with pocket aces against pocket kings. The board rolled out AJ926 to give Esfandiari an un-needed set and eliminate his opponent.

David Williams Eliminates an Opponent

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

David Williams just busted an opponent when he made a straight on a board of 108794 and QJ in the hole. His opponent held pocket tens in the hole, but his set was not enough to beat Williams.

Binger Brothers Battling

Level 30: 100,000-200,000, 30,000 ante

The Binger brothers, Michael and Nicholas, have been seated at a table together.