Day 2 at the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic came to a close late last night with 164 players advancing to the third day of play, which will kick off at Noon today. The official field size settled at 517 players when registration closed at the start of play yesterday, and the top 63 players will take home a minimum cash amount of $18,360. The winner will take home $1,004,090, the largest piece of the nearly $5 million total prize pool.
The chip leader at the end of the night was Peter Neff with 284,700, who was awarded ClubWPT.com PLayer of the Day (video above). Other top stacks include Ryan Eriquezzo (265,000), Naoya Kihara (260,400), Evan McNiff (248,500), Scott Seiver (244,100), Justin Young (234,600), Elliot Smith (224,000), and Jeremy Ausmus (233,600).
A lot of familiar faces hit the rail on Sunday, including Mike Matusow, JC Tran, Matt Stout, Matt Salsberg, Tim West, Bertrand Grospellier, David Sands, Jason Somerville, Amanda Musumeci, Allen Kessler, Tommy Vedes, Shawn Buchanan and Phil Hellmuth.
The field will play another five 90-minute levels today for Day 3 or down to the money bubble if that goal has not been reached after those first five levels.