2009 L.A. Poker Classic

$10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship
Day: 3
Event Info

2009 L.A. Poker Classic

Final Results
Winner
Winning Hand
k5
Prize
$1,686,260
Event Info
Buy-in
$9,600
Entries
696
Level Info
Level
35
Blinds
125,000 / 250,000
Ante
0

River Bets Work for Sowers, Brunson

Mike Sowers started the day near the top of the leaderboard and hasn't shown any sign of slowing down. Sowers and one other player check-called a bet of 4,000 from Neal Wang on a board of {7-Diamonds} {10-Hearts} {10-Diamonds} {K-Spades}. When the river fell a seeming blank, {4-Hearts}, Sowers led out for 13,000. Neither of his opponents put up the chips to see Sowers' cards.

At a table on the other side of the room, Todd Brunson bet 25,000 into a pot of 32,000 on a board of {J-Diamonds} {9-Spades} {2-Hearts} {7-Clubs} {K-Hearts}. His lone opponent, Steven Rosen, had about 20,000 chips left in his stack. Rosen hemmed and hawed for a minute before releasing his hand.

Tags: Mike SowersTodd Brunson

Ho Doubles through Shorr

In a battle of the blinds, big blind Maria Ho wound up all in against small blind Shannor Shorr. Shorr held {K-Hearts} {5-Hearts}, which was second-best to Ho's {10-Spades} {10-Hearts} on a board of {5-Clubs} {Q-Spades} {4-Hearts} {3-Clubs} {2-Clubs}. Shorr mis-counted how much he owed the pot after the hand, prompting Maria to joke, "Shannon, don't try to short me! I don't really have that much as it is." She has 26,000 now.

Tags: Maria HoShannon Shorr

Nguyen Times Out

A hand that took roughly ten minutes to play at Table 34 never got to showdown. John Phan opened the preflop action with a raise to 3,000. He was called by Men Nguyen before the button player, Andy Le, re-raised to 10,000. Phan and Nguyen both called.

A flop of {K-Spades} {A-Clubs} {J-Clubs} brought checks from both Phan and Nguyen. Le took his time before putting his remaining 53,500 chips into the middle. That folded Phan and brought the action back to Nguyen. After a few minutes, he asked one of the other players at the table to call for a clock.

Nguyen started talking to himself. "I can bet ace-queen," he said. "That's all I can beat. Maybe two queens." With a floor supervisor standing over the table and twenty seconds remaining on the clock, Nguyen exposed his hand, showing {A-Spades} {J-Spades}. He took no further action on his hand as the supervisor counted down the last ten seconds on the clock and declared his hand dead.

Nguyen was given a warning for exposing his hand while the action was still live. If he had called, he would have been given a penalty. He didn't call, however, so Le now hs roughly 85,000 chips.

Tags: Andy LeJohn PhanMen Nguyen

Wroblewski Doubles Early

Anna Wroblewski
Anna Wroblewski
During our initial walk through of the field this afternoon, we passed by Anna Wroblewski who joked that we should take her picture now while she's one of the shortest stacks in the field so that when she comes back, it'll look impressive. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come, as moments later she successfully doubled through Matt Woodward.

Wroblewski moved all in before the flop for 9,300 and Woodward made the call with {Q-?} {8-?}; Wroblewski had him dominated with {A-?} {Q-?}. Anna spiked an ace on the flop to further increase her stronghold on the hand, and by the turn, Woodward was drawing dead.

After the hand, Wroblewski stacked up right around 20,000 in chips.

Tags: Anna Wroblewski

Level: 12

Blinds: 600/1,200

Ante: 200

Pedal to the Metal

Antonio Esfandiari is a previous LAPC Main Event winner.
Antonio Esfandiari is a previous LAPC Main Event winner.
Day 3 of the 2009 L.A. Poker Classic is upon us at the Commerce Casino. When all of the bags were logged and counted last night, 167 players had survived Day 2. All runners were led by Antonio "the Magician" Esfandiari, who magicked himself 405,000 chips. Kofi Farkye, with 391,000 chips, is nipping at Esfandiari's heels.

We don't expect to burst the money bubble today, but we should get fairly close. With 63 players getting paid in this tournament, look for around 70 to make it to the end of Day 3. Those 70 will hope to put themselves in position to easily cruise past the money bubble tomorrow in order to make a deep run in the tournament. But of course, a small handful will come back tomorrow only to go home empty-handed.

Players will be in their seat in twenty minutes. We'll have all of the action at that time.