WPT -- L.A. Poker Classic Day 3Kofi Farkye Leads the Field |
|
Monday was hump day for the remaining field in the 2009 World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic main event. The returning field of 167 all had making the money in their sights and after five levels of play only 64 remained, putting them just 1 elimination away from cashing.
Tournament director Matt Savage decided to continue play so that one person wouldn't have to return the next day for nothing. Hand-for-hand play commenced, and the many eyeballs in the room scanned for short stacks.
David Daneshgar was then crippled down to just a few antes after running pocket kings into Dan Lu's pocket aces. One table over, Patrick Stemper's set of nines were beaten by Jeff Garza's nut flush.
Both short stacks were destined to be all in just three hands later, and both were gambling to make a min-cash. Stemper was all in on his small blind with Q-7 against pocket sevens, and the young up-and-coming player bricked out to end his tournament. All eyes turned to Daneshgar, who had ante'd all in and was awaiting the outcome of the action between Nenad Medic and Dan Lu. Lu showed ace-high on the hand, Medic mucked, and Daneshgar sweated out his hand. The first card he pulled was a three, making trips on the board and allowing him to survive the bubble and pocket at least $23,052.
Day 2 chip leader Antonio Esfandiari started the day off in a rough way and was quickly down to just under 300,000 in chips. A late table change seemed like a good change of pace until he got to the murder's row of players at table 33. Joining him at the large-stacked table were players such as Paul Wasicka, Nick Schulman, Dan O'Brien, Mike Sowers, Hoyt Corkins, and Erica Schoenberg. Esfandiari continued to bleed chips and eventually found himself all in just before the bubble with A-K against Sowers and his A-Q. The flop of A-J-J was safe, but the queen on the turn had Esfandiari out of the tournament.
Coming into the day with the second-largest stack was Kofi Farkye, who took out Kevin Saul late on the second day to build his massive stack. Farkye continued his relentless pressure on Monday and never let up the aggression. The few players who played back at him were often met by even an even stronger attack, and many went out trying to be the hero. Toward the end of the night, Farkye had amassed a stack of 837,500, which was largely made up of most of the smaller-denomination chips on the table.
Daniel Negreanu was one of the shorter stacks all day long but never considered himself short-stacked. The slow-moving blinds and antes allowed Negreanu to patiently wait for good spots and slowly chip up. During the fourth level of the night, Negreanu doubled up and was looking strong to continue that trend.
Then he got caught up in a hand with Blake "balla-b13" Cahail. The board read J
10 9
8 K, and Cahail had put Negreanu all in for his last 30,000 or so. After about five minutes in the tank, Negreanu decided to call, and Cahail immediately turned over A
Q for the Broadway straight. Negreanu showed K K
for a rivered set and got up from the table as the level clock counted down to zero. Cahail parlayed that pot into a stack of 369,500 to end the day.
Defending champion Phil Ivey made a run at the title once again, but lost a coinflip to end his tournament. Earlier in the day, Ivey lost a huge pot with pocket kings when his opponent spiked an ace with A-K all in preflop. That hit left Ivey looking to double, and he finally got his chips in the middle with A-8 against the small blind's pocket sixes. The board bricked out and the champ was sent home.
Join us tomorrow at noon PST as we bring you day-4 coverage of the inevitable play-down to the final table.
Copyright © 2001-2025
CardPlayer.com. All rights reserved.
