Day 2 has come to a close at the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic and the field has marched all the way down to 120 from the returning field of 328 players.
The official field size was set today when registration closed at the start of Level 10 and there were 538 players in the event, topping last year’s total by four players. There were 35 players that took advantage of the late buy-in at this event today, including John Phan and Vivek Rajkumar.
The total prize pool is $5,164,800 with the eventual champion taking home $1,015,860. The top 63 players in the field will take home at least $19,050. The money bubble will burst at some point tomorrow.
The chip leader at the end of play tonight is Brent Hart (pictured above) with a huge stack of 487,900. Other top stacks were bagged up by Michael Kamran (387,400), Max Mashour (366,300), Ken Aldridge (355,900), Dylan Hortin (346,600), Pratik Ghatge (306,200), and Peter Neff (303,800).
There are a number of WPT Champions Club members still in the hunt, including Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, JC Tran, and Joe Hachem. Candace Collins is the last BLUFF.com Ones to Watch player standing. The two players atop the WPT Season XIII Player of the Year standings have both advanced to tomorrow, and that will give current leader Anthony Zinno and his adversary Darren Elias extra incentive to be on top of their game on Day 3.
We lost a number of notables during a fast-paced day here in Los Angeles, and one player who left his stack for the lure of the lucrative cash games in the casino below. Daniel Alaei left a stack of 35,000 to play in the cash games this afternoon and he was eventually blinded out this evening. Other big names to hit the rail today were ClubWPT Qualifier Stephen Galvin; BLUFF.com Ones to Watch players Justin Zaki, Jose Serratos, and Vlad Mezheritsky; and WPT Champions Club members Bertrand Grospellier, David Williams, Carlos Mortensen, John Hennigan, and defending LAPC champion Chris Moorman.
Tune back in on Monday at Noon PT to follow the action from Day 3 at this marquee stop on the WPT hosted by Commerce Casino.