The $10,000 buy-in World Poker Tour championship event at the L.A. Poker Classic will begin tomorrow. The championship event is scheduled for six days at Commerce Casino. The final table will take place next Thursday, Feb. 28 at 5 p.m. Last year, Eric Hershler walked away with $2,429,970 when he defeated J.C. Tran heads up for a huge win.
The preliminary fields have been strong at this year’s event, and the first-place prize for the 2008 LAPC champion should be over $2 million once again. Speaking of preliminary events, the month of February saw a couple players ride impressive hot streaks, but no player more so than Men “The Master” Nguyen. Nguyen cashed seven times in L.A., made five final tables, and won three of them. During the course of all of this winning, The Master jumped into second place on the Card Player Player of the Year leader board.
Another player who had a strong showing during the preliminary events was Jordan Rich, who won both a $1,000 seven-card stud event and the $500 no-limit hold’em tag-team event with Craig Gray. David “The Dragon” Pham also made three final tables in the month of February at Commerce, and we will see if he can repeat the success he had last time the WPT stopped in Los Angeles, when he finished in second place at the 2008 Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino.
The Card Player reporting team will be in Los Angeles to bring you all the action, from the announcement of “shuffle up and deal,” tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. PST and throughout the next week until only the champion is left standing. Check out all of the live updates, chip counts, videos, and photos at CardPlayer.com.
