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LA Poker Classic Day 2 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2009-02-23 16:09
Day 2 of the WPT’s LA Poker Classic saw long time WPT overachiever, Antonio Esfandiari take the chip lead over surprise presence Kofi Farkye and Mike Sowers. More than 400 players took to the tables of the Commerce Casino as play kicked off on Day 2. While The Magician was having the time of his life at the tables and chipping up every few hands, other big names like Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Erik Seidel and Gavin Griffin found the going much tougher and eventually succumbed to the pressure, heading to the rail.
Farkye played at the same table as Hellmuth and Chiu, but he wasn’t at all intimidated as he kept betting, shoving and chipping up while generally ruling the table. Esfandiari was hard at work too, first making a major addition to his stack hitting two pairs on with his K,J on a board of 3,K,7,J,A. He then set his sights on K.J Nam’s sizeable stack. He took him on, on a board of 9,J,3 by firing out a pot-size bet on the flop. Nam quickly raised that to more than triple, a move which got Esfandiari thinking for a while, but he then made the call. A 9 fell on the turn, and the Magician checked it. That prompted Nam to fire out a bet, which was check-raised by Esfandiari. Nam then folded.
Phil Laak headed to the rail after a hand in which he tangled with Bertrand Grospellier. He shoved all in preflop on 8,8 and the Frenchman was quick to call him with J,J. The board didn’t improve either hand involved and thus Esfandiari’s “I Bet You” buddy headed to the rail tail between legs.
The same fate soon befell Amir Vahedi, Kevin Saul and David Oppenheim.
Antonio Esfandiari finished the day with a solid lead, having mustered 405,000 chips. Kofi Farkye was close behind with 391,000, followed by Mike Sowers with 337,900.
Bertrand Grospellier finished 10th with 178,900 chips but there were some other very potent players remaining in the field at day’s end. Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey and Jeff Garza were also among the survivors.
