WPT: Paul Smith Takes Over Chip Lead

Published on 27 Aug 08 12:07 by Drakhor

27 players survived Day 3 of the Main Event of the 'Legends of Poker' in the Bicycle Casino. Paul Smith conquered the chip lead. Adam Weinraub endured a nasty beat and dropped down to rank 23.

Negreanu out before the Money Ranks

Even before the tournament started, short stack Daniel Negreanu provided for some cheerfulness at the poker table. When he realised that he was supposed to sit at a table with John Phan, he immediately asked the floorman for the clock. Phan is known for taking quite some time for his well thought-out decisions. Already on the previous tournament days, Phan needed up to 20 minutes for some hands only to see the flop. It is also said that one 'Phan unit' corresponds to five minutes.

Daniel NegreanuThe first big hand between Phan and Negreanu was rather short-lived though. Negreanu pushed all-in from middle position for about 28,000, and John Phan went over-the-top all-in for about 120,000. Negreanu showed and was thus way behind Phan's . The flop came with and was of little use to Negreanu. The turn brought the and thus the set for Phan, but also some outs for Negreanu. The on the river meant a runner-runner for Negreanu and thus a double-up.

A bit later though, the sympathetic Canadian was knocked out. With he lost against for Robert Cheung. Already on the turn he hit his flush and sent Negreanu to the rails.

Bad Beat for Adam Weinraub

WPT Legends of Poker in the Bicycle CasinoAdam Weinraub started the day as chip leader, but had to endure some nasty setbacks over the course of the third day. In the end, it was pure luck that he was still in the race. First he had to double up John Phan when the latter one went all-in on the board of and showed . Weinraub only held . The river didn't help him.

An even worse hit followed in the next hand though: Pre-flop, Philip Stark went all-in with . Weinraub called with . Supposedly a no-brainer. But already the flop turned the tables completely and gave Stark the quads. The on the turn gave Weinraub a bit of hope as he now still had at least one out. But the river sealed the deal. At the end of Day 3, Weinraub only remained with 181,000 chips. Rank 23 in the chip count.

27 Players on Day 4

Besides Adam Weinraub, John Phan, Allen Cunningham and Lee Markholt also made it through the day amongst others. Chip leader Paul Smith is just below 1M in chips. His closest pursuers are Amit Makhija on rank 2 and Layne Flack on rank 3.

Below the complete chip count:


WPT VII - Legends of Poker
$10,000 Main Event
Chip Count after Day 3

Rank
Name Chips
1
Paul Smith 946,000
2
Amit Makhija 842,000
3
Layne Flack 807,000
4
Lee Markholt 779,000
5
Matt Keikoan 744,000
6
Ron Jenkins 740,000
7
Kyle Wilson 619,000
8
Denny Lee 481,000
9
Takashi Shiono 461,000
10
Trong Nguyen 457,000
11
Allen Cunningham 420,000
12
Kirk Conrad 416,000
13
Zach Clark 388,000
14
Jinyun Lin 363,000
15
Marco Johnson 310,000
16
Philip Stark 307,000
17
Tan Le 294,000
18
John Phan 244,000
19
Rodeen Talebi 230,000
20
Samuel Ngai 220,000
21
Gary Najaryan 211,000
22
Jim Hof 201,000
23
Adam Weinraub 181,000
24
Sirous Baghchehsaraie 176,000
25
Benjamin Fineman 159,000
26
Maria Ho 158,000
27
Raymond Voskanian 16,000