Come Together Now: Day...

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Come Together Now: Day 2 at WPT Legends

By Arthur Crowson | Live Tournaments

It's always a good day when the remaining players in a tournament are combined under one roof and that's just what happened on Day 2 of the 2008 WPT Legends of Poker.

The day began with 248 players converging on the overburdened ballroom at the Bicycle Casino in L.A. Players overflowed into the hallways and several tables were set up outside of the actual ballroom.

There wasn't a lack of high profile players either with Allen Cunningham, Tuan Le, Mark Newhouse, Kathy Liebert and Mark Seif all leading the charge.

One of the early highlights of the day was the antics of a certain Layne "Back-to-Back" Flack who had a ruling go against him and was not pleased to say the least.

Can you smell what Layne Flack is cooking?

In the hand Flack had a player moving his chips towards the middle but before the player could say what he was raising Flack shoved all his own chips into the pot.

There was confusion at the table because the player had never even announced a raise a let go of the chips.

The tournament director came over and ruled the player would be forced to merely call.

Flack was upset because he thought that by taking away the players option of folding or raising it hurt his own chances of winning the hand. Flack dropped the F-bomb and that was enough to get him ejected from the room.

"F*** you, I'll give YOU a F***ing penalty," Flack said as he left the room.

He then proceeded to rant in the media room/sushi bar for a while, but apologized for the disturbance by buying the reporters a round and all was forgiven.

Vanessa Rousso: Gone too soon.

Some of the early bustouts included Phil Laak, Vanessa Rousso, Lee Watkinson, David Tran, Ryan Young and Men "The Master" Nguyen.

The 2007 Legends winner Dan Harrington was also eliminated early so we will have a new champion this year.

After starting the day with only $15,000 chips EPT Copenhagen winner Tim Vance made a serious go of things and at one time got up to approximately $60,000.

Unfortunately that's as good as it got for Vance and he was eventually forced to get all-in when he hit a jack on a flop against Van Nguyen. Nguyen had a pair of queens which was enough to send the pride of Illinois back to, well, Illinois.

Throughout the day there were two players who simply wouldn't give up their spot as chip leaders. Ali Eslami and Adam Weinraub traded places as the overall chip leader many times during the day and it was Weinraub who became the first player to break the $500,000 mark.

There were a couple of November Niners in the field with Scott Montgomery and Kelly Kim both trying to prove they are no one-hit wonders.

Unfortunately Montgomery made a bizarre play in the early goings and was subsequently eliminated. He later explained to the media that an emergency appointment came up and he had to leave.

Meanwhile Kelly Kim made it through the day with $90,000 chips and will be looking for the early double up.

Maria Ho: So hot right now.

During the later stages of the day there were four famales left and surprisingly three of them were seated at the same table. Kathy Liebert, Maria Ho and the slightly less well-known Esther Taylor all had to compete with each other as the day drew to a close. Taylor got the best of it for the most part and finished with approximately $90,000 chips.

There was a total 167 eliminations during the day, which means 82 players made it through the day with Adam Weinraub, Matt Keikoan, Max Pescatori and Mark Seif all among the chip leaders and Erik Seidel, Allen Cunningham, Max Pescatori, Antonio Esfandiari and Erick Lindgren all making to see the light of Day 3.

To read an exclusive PokerListings.com interview with Erick Lindgren regarding the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event and more check out our interview section.

Unless there is some unforeseen disaster tomorrow we will make the money and players will start to get serious about making that final table.

Join us tomorrow as the action gets hot and heavy with $3.5 million on the line.

Here is the top 10 unofficial chip counts courtesy of www.worldpokertour.com: