This Week in Poker: Poker Tournament News Aug. 16-22

Check out CardPlayer.com every Friday for a weekly wrap-up of the news from the live poker tournament trail.

This Week in Tournament Poker

WPT Legends of Poker

Many poker professionals have been gathering in Southern California this week at the Bicycle Casino to gear up for the $10,000 World Poker Tour championship event at the Legends of Poker, which begins tomorrow. Card Player’s tournament reporting team will be there every day to bring you live updates, chip counts, pictures, player interviews, and videos. Men Nguyen dominated early in the preliminaries, winning two events two weeks ago; those events were the $300 no-limit hold’em event and the $500 Omaha eight-or-better event, just two days apart. This week a pair of professionals took runner-up spots in preliminary events at the Bike.

Eric Hershler finished as runner-up in preliminary event No. 16, which was a $1,000 no-limit hold’em tournament that drew 201 entrants. He took home $35,875 in prize money and 400 POY points. This is the second final table Hershler has made at Legends this year; he finished in fifth place in preliminary event No. 9 two weeks ago.

Chris Grigorian won $13,460 when he finished in second place in a $500 limit hold’em event on Tuesday. Grigorian also received 150 POY points for that runner-up finish in a field of 150 players. "Miami" John Cernuto (seventh) and Vince Burgio (eighth) also made appearances at that final table.

Card Player Player of the Year Update

POY Standings

Erik Seidel — 4,580
John Phan — 4,181
David Benyamine — 4,148
Michael Binger — 3,600
David “The Dragon” Pham — 3,582
Erick Lindgren — 3,459
Shannon Shorr — 3,388
Vinny Pahuja — 3,270
Men “The Master” Nguyen — 3,230
David Chiu — 3,120

Note: Four other players, Allen Bari (11th), Jacobo Fernandez (12th), Dario Minieri (13th), and J.C. Tran (14th), all have more than 3,000 POY points.

POY Movement

There was no major movement on the POY leader board this past week, but it should be noted that Nguyen jumped from 21st place to ninth place with his two Legends of Poker preliminary wins two weeks ago, which gave him 432 POY points. This is the largest move any player has made on the leader board since the conclusion of the Bellagio Cup IV. The two wins also gave Nguyen his ninth and 10th final-table appearances of the year, giving him the most of any player on tour this year.

Looking Ahead

All eyes will turn to the Bicycle Casino tomorrow for day 1A of the first $10,000 open buy-in tournament since the conclusion of the Bellagio Cup IV in July. The winner of the Legends of Poker will be crowned on Thursday next week. The tournament will take place over six days in Bell Gardens, California, and most of the top names in poker are expected to play. Be sure to check out the preview for this major stop on the tournament trail in poker news.

Next week will also feature a couple of championship events on smaller poker tours across the country. A $5,000 championship event will conclude on Monday, Aug. 26 at the Empire State Hold'em Championships at Turning Stone Casino in New York. Also set to conclude on Monday next week is the $1,500 main event at the Heartland Poker Tour stop in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The Gulf Coast Poker Championship will begin on Wednesday, Aug. 27 at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi. This tournament series will feature eight preliminaries and a $5,000 championship event that will take place from September 4-6. The GCPC was a WPT stop last year, but the schedule has been shuffled around a bit in Season VII, and the WPT will return to Biloxi in January 2009 for the Southern Poker Championship. There will also be a $5,300 no-limit hold'em tournament in Macau on the Asian Poker Tour that begins on Thursday, Aug. 28.

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