Home / Poker News August 2011 / WPT Legends of Poker – Day 1A Report
WPT Legends of Poker – Day 1A Report
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2011-08-27 11:45
The WPT’s 10th season has kicked off way back in May. All the anti-poker events and the generally less favorable poker atmosphere had managed to keep it out of the US until yesterday though, when the Legends of Poker Event got going in the Bicycle Casino in LA.
The organizers had great expectations for the event which – at least for its first day 1 flight – pretty much failed to deliver. Only 322 players registered for Day1A. At the end of the day, 148 were still standing.
Matthew Berkey was the one who managed to amass the largest stack: he accumulated 248.5k, enough to give him the top position on the provisional leader board. Berkey’s big break came during level 9, when he managed to take down a massive pot from David Baker. Berkey check-called on a flop of Kc,5s,2c, and he check-called when the turn brought a Jh too. The 6d on the river prompted both players to just check. Berkey then tabled K,7 to win the pot and to push his stack close to the 200k mark. He did keep on adding to his stack all the way to the final whistle.
Other notable players who managed to survive the day were
PokerStars’ Greg Mueller, Maria Ho, Chris DeMaci and Allen Cunningham. Phil Hellmuth, who had had an excellent
WSOP this year, failed to make it to day 2. He was eliminated by Hafiz Khan when he shoved all-in on a flop of Q,J,5, holding K,J. Khan had Q,J though for the top pair and the turn and the river failed to help the Brat.
It’s not all over for Hellmuth though. He will be allowed to return to action on Day 1B, and he will probably do so too.
No fewer than 721 players would be needed to join the action on Day 1b in order to surpass the attendance of the largest WPT event ever: the 2010 Borgata Poker Open. The winner of that event, Dwyte Pilgrim, managed to make it to day 2.
