| Legends Final Attracts 667!
Poker is here to stay. A door-busting mob of 667 poker players and TV hopefuls showed up for Day 1 of the Legends of Poker Championship/WPT event, $5,000 no-limit hold’em. This was well over twice the total of 309 for last year. The ballroom, hallway and tent were all packed. It wasn’t until 12:25 a.m. until the last players left the tent and tournament director Denny Williams congratulated everybody for making the final building. The winner will get $1,175,000, the first million-dollar payday in Bicycle Casino history, along with a $25,000 Bellagio seat, which will come out of the prize pool. In all, 63 places will be paid.
Six 90-minute rounds were played today, and some 296 players survived. Leading the pack with $105,925 in chips was Aaron Katz. They will return on day 2 to will play down to the money tables. On day 3, action will continue until six players are left, and they will then come back on day 4 to fight it out for the WPT-televised championship.
Six World Series of Poker champions made it to the second day: Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Dan Harrington, Chris Ferguson, Brad Daugherty and Carlos Mortensen. Five women bracelet holders were present: Jennifer Harman, Barbara Enright, Kathy Liebert, Cyndy Violette and Annie Duke. Only Harman survived day 1. Enright was the last gold standard lady to go out, just before level six, when she moved in with pocket jacks and ran up against pocket aces.
Hollywood was well represented. Sitting at one table were Ben Affleck, winner of Commerce Casino’s Cal State championship event this year, along with “Friends” superstar Matthew Perry. At other tables were actors James Woods, Tobey “Spiderman” Maguire and Gabe Kaplan. Only Kaplan made it past day 1, though two of the others lasted to the final level. Spidey got knocked out after he moved in for $1,700 with pocket 9s, got called by Kd-6d and watched as a 6 flopped and another 6 hit the river. Late in the round, Woods moved in for $2,700 with pocket 5s. He got called by a player with Kh-6h. The player missed his flush draw but hit his 6. When informed that nearly all the actors were gone, Williams responded, “What are you talking about? We’ve got a room full of actors here.” --Max Shapiro
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