. There were already 90,000 chips in the middle; Corkins' opponent finally surrendered, claiming to have mucked pocket jacks. As Corkins stacked his newfound 145,000 chips, he claimed to have been dealt pocket queens.
2009 L.A. Poker Classic
$10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship
Day: 2
Event Info
2009 L.A. Poker Classic
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
Buy-in
$9,600
Entries
696
Level
35
Blinds
125,000 / 250,000
Ante
0
Players Left 1 / 696
Filter
. There were already 90,000 chips in the middle; Corkins' opponent finally surrendered, claiming to have mucked pocket jacks. As Corkins stacked his newfound 145,000 chips, he claimed to have been dealt pocket queens.
and check-called another 5,000 when the turn fell 
. On the river
, the small blind checked a third time. Ferguson fired 12,000 chips into the pot, just less than half of his opponent's remaining stack. The small bind tanked for about a minute, then cringed and threw in a matching 12,000. Ferguson showed 
for a rivered two pair, aces and eights.The small blind looked briefly at the ceiling and heaved a deep sigh. "Good river," he said as he mucked his hand, suggesting he had been ahead until the last community card came out.
Ferguson doesn't have a monster stack, but that pot pushed him to about 80,000 in chips.
Negreanu tried to eyeball Mills' stack, causing Mills to start to break it down. "The more you fiddle with it, the worse it gets," said Negreanu with a grin. "Just leave it alone. You're like making cookies or something." Satisfied that Mills had more chips than Negreanu wanted to call off, he folded his hand.
The next hand Negreanu opened for 1,800 again. This time the player to his immediate left reraised to 5,500. Negreanu didn't take a flop for that hand, either. He still has 53,000 chips. Paul Darden, on his immediate right, has 90,000.
Antonio Esfandiari - 438,000
Kofi Farkye - 271,000
Mike Sowers - 232,000
KJ Nam - 180,000
Haralabos Voulgaris - 167,000
John Phan - 156,000
Phil Ivey - 155,000
Bertrand Grospellier - 149,000
Zach Hyman - 141,000
Greg Mueller - 140,000
The very next hand, Phan opened preflop by splashing 3,000 chips into the middle. The big blind called him to a flop of
and then checked. Phan bet 3,000 and was surprised to see his opponent check-raise all in for 30,000! That's when the table talk started."I might bust you, you know that?" Phan asked.
"You've been known to do that," his opponent replied.
Phan then gave the player a beer, telling him, "I've got more coming." He declared a fold, but cajoled his opponent into showing
. Phan flashed 
of his own before surrendering his cards.
Here's an example. David Pham (on the button) and Josh Arieh (in the big blind) called a preflop raise to 2,300. The three-way action checked through all streets on a board of
. Arieh opened first, showing 
. The preflop raiser mucked before Pham flashed 
and also mucked."Good, friendly poker guys," said Arieh.
. He was called by one opponent who was not any of Phil Hellmuth, David Chiu or day-late arrival Brett Shaffer, even though all are seated at the same table.The turn was the
. Farkye cut seven orange (5,000) chips off of his stack and threw them over the betting line. His opponent had 75,000 in his stack; a call would require almost half of that. He did call after roughly a minute.Farkye didn't waste a moment when the river fell
; he moved in for roughly 140,000 and took down the pot when his opponent pitched his cards into the muck. That hand moved Farkye to approximately 260,000 in chips."Wow," marveled Hellmuth. "That's how you got all those chips. Wow."
Shortly thereafter Hellmuth was all in preflop for 2,900 against David Chiu. Hellmuth's suited
was slightly ahead of Chiu's . Both players missed a board that ran out 
, allowing Hellmuth to double up to roughly 7,100."That was a good flop for me," said Hellmuth.
"No kidding," Chiu agreed. "Never say I don't give you action."
"I didn't want it."
