With the elimination of Jeremy Kottler in seventh place in the Season XV World Poker Tour® Legends of Poker Main Event, the lineup is set for the televised WPT® final table. Here are the official chip counts:
Season XV WPT Legends of Poker Final Table
Seat 1. William Vo – 5,260,000 (88 bb)
Seat 2. Pat Lyons – 4,980,000 (83 bb)
Seat 3. Benjamin Zamani – 3,210,000 (54 bb)
Seat 4. Todd Peterson – 1,940,000 (32 bb)
Seat 5. Upeshka De Silva – 4,475,000 (75 bb)
Seat 6. Rafael Ferreira de Oliveira – 780,000 (13 bb)
The leader, William Vo, is 77 years old, and he’s developed into a crowd favorite with his exuberant celebrations after winning big hands. Vo is a Bicycle Casino regular who has just one previous WPT cash on his resume — he finished 31st in this event five years ago.
Second in chips is Pat Lyons, who calls himself “World Famous Pat Lyons,” and he isn’t shy about talking up the action. Lyons should be recognizable to people familiar with the northern California tournament scene, and he has said that the WPT Legends of Poker is one of the 3-4 tournaments that he’d most like to win in the world.
Upeshka De Silva is a WSOP bracelet winner with over $1 million in live tournaments earnings. When WPT Champion and WPT Alpha8 Commentator Olivier Busquet busted in 19th place, he was asked who he thought had the best shot at winning this event. Busquet pointed to De Silva.
Benjamin Zamani is also a WSOP bracelet winner with more than $3.2 million in live tournament earnings. This is Zamani’s 13th WPT cash, his fifth WPT Final Table, and he has two televised WPT runner-up finishes in the past 10 months.
Zamani has also taken the lead in the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race, passing James Mackey, the player who beat him heads-up at WPT Choctaw about a month ago. Zamani will finish this event with at least 1,600 POY points, and if he wins he will have 2,200. Those are huge POY numbers for this early in the WPT season.
This is the first WPT cash for Todd Peterson, who has $181,000 in career live tournament earnings. We don’t know much about Rafael Ferreira de Oliveira, but he traveled from Brazil to play in this event, and he is making the most of it with a televised WPT Final Table.
Here is the remaining prizepool at stake, along with the players who were eliminated earlier today:
1st: $615,346*
2nd: $341,412
3rd: $198,720
4th: $149,715
5th: $113,105
6th: $85,760
7th: Jeremy Kottler – $66,895
8th: Garrett Greer – $52,190
9th: David Pham – $39,940
10th: Ray Qartomy – $29,060
11th: Will Givens – $29,060
12th: Barry Shulman – $29,060
13th: Gary Sewell – $24,260
*First prize amount includes winner’s $15,000 entry into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
The final table will take place today, Thursday, Sept. 1, at The Bicycle Hotel & Casino, and you can follow along right here on WPT.com.