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World Poker Tour Championship Will Award $1.6 Million To Eventual Winner

Abe Mosseri Leads Remaining 116 Players

by Julio Rodriguez  |  Published: May 15, 2011  |  

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Tournament Director Jack McClellandThe second day of the 2011 World Poker Tour Championship attracted 37 additional players before registration closed, bringing the total field size to 220 and guaranteeing the eventual winner $1,618,344.

The $25,000 buy in tournament saw a 25-player increase over 2010’s field and generated a total prize pool of $5,309,500, which will be paid out to the final 27 players.

This is the largest tournament buy-in on U.S. soil since Black Friday and many were surprised to see the field surpass last year’s numbers. Traditionally, the WPT Championship has taken place in April and gone head-to-head with the EPT Grand Final, but this year, the Bellagio staff decided to push it back to May.

“Overall, I’m happy with the turnout,” said Tournament Director Jack McClelland. “We originally thought that moving the tournament from April to May would bring in between 250 and 300 players, but Black Friday obviously changed all of that. A lot of players have their money tied up and the economy still isn’t what it once was, so we had to change our goal a little bit and hope for a field that matched last year’s count of 195. Thankfully, we surpassed that number pretty easily.”

The Bellagio was able to reach their 220-player mark by allowing registration to remain open through level 8, more than halfway through the second day of play.

Some of the notables who took advantage of late registration included Phil Hellmuth, Tony G, Bill Perkins and Andrew Robl, who managed to only last three hands before being eliminated by fellow late comer Joe Cassidy.

Abe MosseriHigh-stakes regular Abe Mosseri will enter day 3 with the chip lead and a stack of 685,200, nearly four times the average stack. Mosseri’s run nearly didn’t happen, however, as he needed a four-outer just to stay alive early in the day.

Mosseri got his stack in holding top two pair on a flop of 10s9s8d against the flopped straight of Kevin Saul, who entered the day as one of the bigger stacks in the room. The turn was a brick, but the river was another nine, giving Mosseri a full house. Saul was eliminated a short while later.

Other players near the top of the counts include Alan Sternberg (606,400), Steven Kelly (566,500), Scott Seiver (461,300) and Justin Young (414,100). Only 116 players remain and they will return on Monday at noon for another five levels of action.

Take a look at the full overnight chip counts below.

Rank First Name Last Name Chip Count
1 ABRAHAM MOSSERI 685,200
2 ALAN STERNBERG 606,400
3 STEVEN KELLY 566,500
4 ROGER TESKA 534,900
5 SCOTT SEIVER 461,300
6 JOSHUA BERGMAN 415,600
7 JUSTIN YOUNG 414,100
8 ROBERT MERCER 408,600
9 DAVID PETERS 401,400
10 DARREN ELIAS 342,900
11 ERIK SEIDEL 342,100
12 STEVEN GROSS 340,400
13 JEFFREY FORREST 333,300
14 CHRISTOPHER DEMACI 332,600
15 JOSEPH CHEONG 329,500
16 GALEN HALL 326,700
17 YEVGENIY TIMOSHENKO 315,800
18 ANDREW LICHTENBERGER 300,200
19 RANDALL FLOWERS 299,800
20 JAKE CODY 295,800
21 JONATHAN LAYANI 295,100
22 SAM EL SAYED 286,000
23 CURT KOHLBERG 270,500
24 KENNY TRAN 269,200
25 GOVERT METAAL 267,800
26 BRANDON STEVEN 265,000
27 SHANNON SHORR 263,000
28 MICHAEL TAIT 244,300
29 DOYLE BRUNSON 244,000
30 ANTHONY GARGANO 241,600
31 FARZAD BONYADI 237,900
32 RICHARD HARROCH 233,900
33 CHRISTIAN HARDER 232,100
34 ASHTON GRIFFIN 227,300
35 SHAWN CUNIX 226,800
36 ALEXANDER KUZMIN 225,000
37 RANDALL YASNY 224,500
38 RANDY DORFMAN 220,200
39 NENAD MEDIC 215,500
40 CHRISTOPHER MOORMAN 213,900
41 RYAN DANGELO 209,500
42 PHILIP GALFOND 207,200
43 JONATHAN LITTLE 206,700
44 ERIC BALDWIN 206,300
45 ALI TEKINTAMGAC 205,800
46 TYLER SMITH 200,900
47 ANDREW FRANKENBERGER 198,900
48 HARALABOS VOULGARIS 196,200
49 DAVID BROWNWORTH 194,200
50 SCOTT CLEMENTS 190,400
51 DANIEL ALAEI 187,000
52 DAVID CHIU 185,300
53 TAYLOR VONKRIEGENBERGH 184,400
54 JEFFREY ISHBIA 184,300
55 PAUL RAUCHSTADT 180,500
56 STEPHEN ODWYER 173,800
57 MATTHEW HYMAN 170,000
58 JOSHUA FIELD 165,300
59 BURTON BOUTIN 155,700
60 MASAAKI KAGAWA 154,400
61 ROBERT RUGIERO 153,300
62 JOSEPH BARTHOLDI 150,000
63 SAMUEL TRICKETT 145,900
64 DAVID WILLIAMS 145,400
65 SHAWN BUCHANAN 144,500
66 BARRY GREENSTEIN 142,000
67 CLIFF JOSEPHY 136,800
68 ALEXANDRE SOUZA 136,600
69 DOUGLAS BOOTH 136,400
70 THOMAS DRIVAS 136,400
71 JOSEPH ELPAYAA 135,800
72 PHILIP LAAK 134,900
73 ALLEN CUNNINGHAM 126,100
74 WILL “THE THRILL” FAILLA 123,600
75 ANDRE AKKARI 123,600
76 JIMMY TRAN 123,500
77 HAFIZ KHAN 119,100
78 PHILLIP HELLMUTH 118,900
79 BRENT HANKS 116,000
80 ROBERTO ROMANELLO 115,500
81 BERTRAND GROSPELLIER 112,200
82 KHOA TRAN 107,100
83 SCOTT ESKENAZI 104,000
84 ELIJAH BERG 103,500
85 JONATHAN TURNER 101,900
86 ALI ESLAMI 99,500
87 DANIEL NEGREANU 91,100
88 MICHAEL SEXTON 90,500
89 PARVIZ RAZAVIAN 87,200
90 DAVID ULLIOTT 86,000
91 JUSTIN SMITH 84,900
92 CHRISTOPHER HUNICHEN 84,500
93 THOMAS MCCORMACK 83,400
94 CARY KATZ 82,900
95 ZACHARY HYMAN 79,700
96 ANTANAS GUOGA 78,600
97 CHRISTOPHER MOORE 77,500
98 WILLIAM BAXTER 76,400
99 DAVIDI KITAI 72,500
100 JESS YAWITZ 72,100
101 RYAN SCHMIDT 71,000
102 EUGENE KATCHALOV 70,400
103 PERMAGNUS UMMER 68,500
104 ALEXEY REPIK 66,700
105 DANIEL HEIMILLER 65,200
106 CARY ATKINS 65,100
107 BRANDON MEYERS 63,600
108 MORITZ KRANICH 61,700
109 DMITRY STELMAK 61,000
110 DANIEL PERPER 59,300
111 MIKAEL THURITZ 53,100
112 JASON PRITCHARD 51,800
113 JUSTIN ZAKI 50,500
114 ERIC FORD 49,300
115 KEN LAWSON 37,500
116 WINFRED YU 31,000
 
 
Tags: World Poker Tour,   WPT,   WPT Championship,   Bellagio,   Abe Mosseri,   Kevin Saul,   Andrew Robl,   Joe Cassidy,   Jack McClelland,   Black Friday
 
 
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