The World Poker Tour (WPT) is back after a two and a half month hiatus with its third stop of Season XIV, WPT Choctaw at Oklahoma’s Choctaw Casino Resort. The Main Event, which began on Friday, July 31st with the first of two starting flights, is a $3,500 + $200 tournament with a $2 million guarantee. Monday is the penultimate day of the tourney, as just 30 of the 1,175 entrants remain. Caufman Talley leads the field with 3.49 million chips.
With 1,175 players, WPT Choctaw clearly exceeded its guarantee. In fact, just the top six places combine to pay nearly $2 million and 144 total players will make the money in this tournament. First place will pay $682,975, a sum which includes a $15,400 seat into the WPT World Championship.
If Talley can hold on for the next two days and win the whole thing – and with a 700,000 chip lead on his closest competitor, he’s a good bet to at least keep going for a while – it would be the first major live tournament win of his career. The closest he has come to a major title was in June when he finished tenth in one of the 2015 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events. He cashed four times this summer, all in lower buy-in events. Three were $1,500 tourneys and one was the $565 Colossus. That is essentially Talley’s niche – a low buy-in, regional player. He has actually won a handful of tournaments, including multiple WSOP Circuit ring events. All told, Caufman Talley has earned close to $400,000 on the live tournament circuit.
After Talley, the top ten of the leader board is filled with strong players. In second place with 2,805,000 chips is Darren Elias, the WPT Season XIII Player of the Year runner-up. He cashed eight times on the Tour last year, including becoming the first player in WPT history to win consecutive tournaments in the same season.
In fourth place with 1,925,000 is long-time WPT commentator Vince Van Patten and just a few chips behind him is Andy Hwang, who won the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open in 2013. There are two more members of the WPT Champions Club: Jared Jaffee, in eighth place with 1,560,000 chips, has made four WPT final tables and won the WPT bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble in 2013, and Erik Seidel, in ninth with 1,465,000 chips, has two World Poker Tour titles to his name (one in an open event) to go along with eight WSOP bracelets.
Day 3 will begin at 1:00pm local time (Central time zone in the U.S.) and will run until there are just six players remaining.
2015 World Poker Tour Choctaw Main Event – Day 2 Chip Leaders
1. Caufman Talley – 3,490,000
2. Darren Elias – 2,805,000
3. Alex Lynskey – 2,060,000
4. Vince Van Patten – 1,925,000
5. Andy Hwang – 1,890,000
6. Mukul Pahuja – 1,710,000
7. Nipun Java – 1,685,000
8. Jared Jaffee – 1,560,000
9. Erik Seidel – 1,465,000
10. Justin Custer – 1,355,000
Remaining Payouts
1st: $682,975
2nd: $468,105
3rd: $303,593
4th: $224,913
5th: $167,691
6th: $135,504
7th: $112,854
8th: $89,806
9th: $66,759
10th-12th: $50,466
13th-15th: $40,532
16th-18th: $34,969
19th-21st: $30,995
22nd-24th: $27,419
25th-27th: $23,842
29th-30th: $20,266
