The Latest From the WPT Poker Classic in L.A.

Written by: Tight Poker Staff March 2, 2013 Affiliate Disclaimer

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Day 1 for the 2013 WPT Poker Classic in L.A. was a success despite the commemoration of the death of Jerry Buss. The former owner of the Lakers also a serious player passed away last week after a long battle with cancer. Commerce Casino, the host of the tournament, had been a regular card room for Buss, casting a bit of a sad shadow over the festivities. However, the party has got to go on and all the entrants were at their very best.
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After the announcement regarding the additional stops during the tournament, the entire tour became more exciting. After World Poker Tour Baden, this week’s poker extravaganza will be in California. The tournament attracted 517 entrants and cost $10,000 to play. The prize pool reached $4,963,200 where the top 63 will split the remainder after $1,004,090 is taken, which will be reserved for the first place finisher. The final 8 will all cash in six-figure prizes while the remaining 54 will at least double their buy-in.
Peter Neff was the one who led Day 2 of the L.A. Poker Classics with 284,700 chips. He was automatically seated to the left of Jeremy Ausmus, who was a 2012 WSOP finalist. He happened to be a threat to Neff with his sizable stack of over 220,000 chips. Among other players at the table, only the two had chip counts over 100,000
Table 34 also seems to have promising players, which included Justin Young, who had the sixth-largest chip stack in the tournament pool of over 200,000. Trevor Pope also belonged to the same table with 225,000 chips, which placed him in tenth place. Other players who shared a table were Jason Wheeler, who had around 180,000 chips as well as Jennifer Tilly who had over 130,000 chips.
On Day 3, everything went nitty-gritty as the number of players went from 162 to just 63. Jeremy Ausmus was leading the pack, being the only one with over a million chips. Having 1,014,000 gives him almost 25% more than his closest opponent. Ausmus made his name in the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event where he placed 5^th and made over $2.1 million.
Aside from Ausmus, the WPT L. A. Poker Classic leader board is filled with the names of strong players. Eric Froehlich who owns one WSOP Bracelet is currently placed 3rd, while Galen Hall who won the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and finished third in 2011 World Poker Tour Championship and Paul Volpe who placed 20^th in the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event.