Day 2 of the Season XVI WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship event came to a close Sunday from Commerce Casino in Southern California. It was a day that saw registration close with 493 entries tallied and Kimbo Ung (pictured) grab the chip lead with 379,400 in chips.
“I’m the chip leader!” Ung exclaimed to WPT.com after the day was over. “I didn’t know that. I just gradually built, the same thing yesterday and today. I just keep chipping up. I’ve lost a few pots here and there. I lost a big pot at the end, I would have had 500,000 if I didn’t lose that pot.
“I didn’t have any good hands at all, I just kept playing the suited connectors and building up little by little.”
Ung is from Las Vegas and has $126,486 in career live tournament earnings ahead of this event, according to his HendonMob.com profile. The bulk of those earnings came from one victory in a 2010 Heartland Poker Event that Ung won for $125,901.
“I satellited into this thing, so nobody knows me in here,” Ung said. “Everybody in here is a pro, and it’s amazing playing against those guys. I won the seat in an $1,100 buy-in satellite — the first shot, too.”
The top 62 places will reach the money, with $1 million going to the winner, and there are 102 players remaining.
Close to Ung on the leaderboard to end Day 2 was Chance Kornuth with 374,400, and then Dennis Blieden was third with 370,500. Day 1 chip leader John Misirian bagged up the fourth largest stack remaining with 370,000.
Thirteen WPT Champions Club members advanced to Day 3, with Season XVI WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic winner Ryan Tosoc chief among them. Tosoc finished with a stack of 254,200. Mike Del Vecchio, a champion from Season V and the third-place finisher in the WPT Five Diamond event that Tosoc won, bagged 236,900.
Phil Hellmuth, host of the WPT Raw Deal, bagged a stack of 173,300 despite skipping all of Day 1 and coming in on Day 2. Anthony Zinno, three-time WPT champion and winner of the Season XIII WPT L.A. Poker Classic, finished on 91,700.
Day 3 kicks off Monday at 12 p.m. local time at Commerce Casino. When the field reaches one table off the money, the Action Clock, provided by Protection Poker, will be implemented.
Stay tuned to WPT.com for continued covered from the Season XVI WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship.
Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com
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