2017 Legends of Poker Main Event Awards World Poker Tour's Billionth Dollar763 Entries Make For Second Largest Turnout In Event's 16-Year History |
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Registration officially closed on Monday, August 28 in the 2017 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker $4,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event at the Bicycle Hotel and Casino. A total of 763 entries were made this year, making it the second largest field for the event in its 16-year history. As a result the prize pool swelled to $2,738,407 with $668,692 set to go to the eventual champion. The top 81 players will make the money in this event, with a min-cash being worth $7,135.
In addition to the strong turnout in 2017, this year’s running of the Legends of Poker main event also will go down in the history books as the event that saw the WPT award it’s $1,000,000,000th dollar of prize money. In fact, the 47th place finisher in this event will be the player to receive the exact billionth dollar awarded by the tour. To commemorate the occasion the WPT will award that player a buy-in into the 2018 running of this tournament. The top 47 finishers will also each be given a bottle of COLOR Wine, a new sponsor of the tour.
This event featured three starting flights and also allowed registration up until the start of play on day 2. There were 48 players who took advantage of that option, sitting down with 30,000 in chips, or 25 big blinds.
At the end of day 2 only 90 players remained from the 763 entries. The chip leader heading into day 3 is Oddie Dardon with 775,000. Dardon is no stranger to big scores at the Bike, having won the 2015 Card Player Poker Tour Bicycle Hotel & Casino $1,100 no-limit hold’em main event for $155,535.
Other notables with big stacks include J.C. Tran (565,000), David Baker (479,000), Curt Kohlberg (445,000), Cody Slaubaugh (414,000), Valentin Vornicu (408,000) and 14-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, who joined the WPT broadcast team recently as the host of the ‘Raw Deal’ segment.
Play resumes at noon local time on day 3, with 30-second Action Clock timers in play for the remainder of the tournament.
Photo courtesy of WPT / Joe Giron.
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