The World Poker Tour revved up again over the weekend with the first two of three starting flights of the popular WPT Legends of Poker Main Event held at the Bicycle Casino and Hotel in Bell Gardens, California. Day 1A saw 171 entrants pay the $3,700 buy-in, while 214 more gave it a shot on Sunday’s Day 1B. A total of 148 made it to Day 2 from both days, with Day 1B leader Leonid Markin holding a slight edge on Day 1A chip leader JC Tran for the overall lead, 203,000 to 201,700.
This year’s WPT Legends of Poker is back to a more standard re-entry structure. Players are permitted to buy-in to any or all of the starting flights; if a player busts out of Day 1A, he can try again for another buy-in on Day1B and/or Day 1C (similarly, if a player is eliminated on Day 1B, he can buy-in again on Day 1C). Registration is open until the beginning of Day 2, so anyone who still doesn’t have chips after today can still hop into the tournament, provided they register by 1:00pm local time tomorrow.
Last year, the Bicycle Casino implemented the controversial Quantum Reload concept for the Legends of Poker. The Day 1 re-entry portion was the same: three starting flights, players can enter any or all of them for $3,700 a pop. Day 2 was where it differed, though. Those who wanted to skip the opening flights (or busted out of them), could register for Day 2 directly, but had to pay $10,000 for the privilege. Those deep-pocketed players started Day 2 with 60 big blinds.
Tomorrow, anyone who buys-in to Day 2 will start with 25 big blinds, or 30,000 chips. From a pure chip-count perspective, this is the same starting stack as anyone who began on one of the three opening flights. Thus, if this year used the Quantum Reload concept, Day 2 starters would have received 72,000 chips. Many players hated this last year. Not only could richer players just skip the line and enter with an average stack on Day 2, but if they decided to still play on Day 1, many saw them as having a huge advantage. If a player knows he is going to pay the $10,000 on Day 2 if he busts out of the Day 1 flights, he can afford to play ultra-aggressively, hoping to amass a huge chip stack, yet knowing he has a fall-back option if he fails.
Day 1C of the WPT Legends of Poker picks up today at 1:00pm local time.
2015 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker – Day 1A Chip Leaders
1. JC Tran – 201,700
2. Aditya Prasetyo – 179,100
3. Ray Qartomy – 149,900
4. Aaron Mermelstein – 133,000
5. Bruce Kramer – 126,000
6. Eddy Sabat – 122,300
7. Gal Yifrach – 119,700
8. Jake Schindler – 114,100
9. Sean Winter – 112,300
10. Shan Jing – 109,800
2015 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker – Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Leonid Markin – 203,000
2. Daniel Wagner – 199,900
3. Paul Lindsay – 189,300
4. Mark Scacewater – 179,100
5. Michael Wang – 156,100
6. Nipun Java – 154,000
7. JJ Liu – 152,500
8. Jordan Warkol – 149,700
9. Griffin Paul – 142,500
10. Calvin Anderson – 141,700
2015 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker – Combined Day 1 Chip Leaders
1. Leonid Markin – 203,000
2. JC Tran – 201,700
3. Daniel Wagner – 199,900
4. Paul Lindsay – 189,300
5. Mark Scacewater – 179,100
6. Aditya Prasetyo – 179,100
7. Michael Wang – 156,100
8. Nipun Java – 154,000
9. JJ Liu – 152,500
10. Ray Qartomy – 149,900
