August in Los Angeles always brings the Legends of Poker to the Bicycle Casino. This is one of the top tournament series of the year for the recreational poker player. The 37-event series features 15 tournaments with buy-ins of $235 or less.
All tournaments, except the main event and a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event, were $555 or less. The schedule included many variations of poker besides full ring no-limit hold’em, including deuce-to-seven triple draw, H.O.R.S.E., limit hold’em, NLHE six-max, bounty, Omaha/8, pot-limit Omaha, PLO/8 and stud/8-Omaha/8 mixed. There was also a ladies event sponsored by the LIPS Tour.
Though it culminates with the World Poker Tour’s $3,700 Legends of Poker Main Event, the trademark event for this series has to be tournament director Mo Fathipour’s creation, the Mega Millions tournament. This $1 million guarantee re-entry tournament with a $150 buy-in featured more than 20 starting flights. This event shattered the guarantee, with a prize pool of more than $1.2 million.
Players in the Mega Millions were allowed to enter multiple starting flights, even if they advanced previously. If they advanced from more than one flight, they kept their largest stack, and were given a flat fee for any others removed from the tournament. Name poker players who qualified from multiple flights were David Pham and Chris Grigorian.
The WPT main event had a prize pool of more than $2.1 million. The final table boasted prominent pros Ali Eslami, who finished fourth, Greg “FBT” Mueller (fifth) and 2006 World Series of Poker Player of the Year Jeff Madsen, who finished sixth. Josh Hale won the title, $474,500 and a $25K seat into the WPT World Championship.
HOLLYWOOD PARK: This month is the Sport of Kings tournament series at Hollywood Park Casino from Oct. 11-22. There are 14 events, all with buy-ins of $40 to $125, and all have guarantees totaling more than $280K. There is a multi-rebuy event every day Oct. 12-17. The buy-in is $40 except for the 13th, when it is $70. At 6:30 each night, there’s another tournament with the bigger buy-in events. The main event is a $150K guarantee with eight starting flights. There will be two flights each day at 12:30 and 6:30 on Oct. 18-21, with all advancing players coming back on Oct. 22.
— Dave Palm is Ante Up’s Los Angeles Ambassador. Email him at LA.AnteUp@gmail.com.
Legends of Poker, Bicycle Casino, July 28-Aug. 29
Event 1 • $235 NLHE
Entries: 668 • Pool: $129,592
Haiau Han, $29,172
Event 2 • $345 Bounty
Entries: 133 • Pool: $25,802
Steven Silverstein, $7,512
Event 3 • $235 NLHE
Entries: 109 • Pool: $21,146
Walter Smiley, $6,236
Event 4 • $235 PLO/8
Entries: 68 • Pool: $21,922
John Cernuto, $7,237
Event 5 • $335 LHE
Entries: 84 • Pool: $16,296
Angelo Karimalis, $5,195
Event 6 • $345 Omaha/8
Entries: 91 • Pool: $26,481
Jonathan Mendel, $8,476
Event 7 • $235 NLHE
Entries: 140 • Pool: $27,160
Adrian Beloso, $7,875
Event 8 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 96 • Pool: $27,936
Peter Morris, $8,941
Event 9 • $235 H.O.R.S.E.
Entries: 116 • Pool: $22,504
Gerard A. Rechitzer, $6,634
Event 10 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 57 • Pool: $16,587
Phong Nguyen, $5,812
Event 11 • $235 6-Max
Entries: 119 • Pool: $23,086
Julie Shozi, $4,863
Event 12 • $150 NLHE
Entries: 6,064 • Pool: $1.23M
Shaun Abkarian, $220K
Event 13 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 39 • Pool: $11,349
Bryant Hyden, $3,969
Event 14 • $235 2-7 TD
Entries: 35 • Pool: $6,790
Adam Kipnis, $2,480
Event 15 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 57 • Pool: $16,587
Nick Phoenix, $5,802
Event 16 • $235 LHE
Entries: 73 • Pool: $14,162
Ivan Youssefian, $4,532
Event 17 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 39 • Pool: $11,349
Daniel Furnival, $3,969
Event 18 • $235 6-Max
Entries: 119 • Pool: $23,086
Randall Christing, $6,456
Event 19 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 31 • Pool: $9,021
Randy Bowie, $3,156
Event 20 • $235 S8/O8
Entries: 135 • Pool: $26,190
Donald Hoffman, $7,070
Event 21 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 66 • Pool: $19,206
Chris Kay, $6,146
Event 22 • $235 NLHE
Entries: 85 • Pool: $16,490
Ilia Lekach, $5,270
Event 23 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 375 • Pool: $109,125
Leonard Parker, $26,100
Event 24 • $245 LIPS
Entries: 68 • Pool: $12,959
London Gallagher, $4,144
Event 25 • $235 NLHE
Entries: 81 • Pool: $15,714
Marios Savvides, $5,029
Event 26 • $345 NLHE
Entries: 26 • Pool: $9,312
Jason Turnage, $3,257
Event 27 • $555 H.O.R.S.E.
Entries: 79 • Pool: $38,315
Daham Wang, $15,315
Event 28 • $1,070 NLHE
Entries: 334 • Pool: $323,980
Bryce Yockey, $77,720
Event 29 • $555 PLO
Entries: 10 • Pool: $9,000
Dmitri Valquev, $4,500
Event 30 • $555 Omaha/8
Entries: 51 • Pool: $24,735
Marcos Rodriguez, $8,660
$3,700 Main Event
Entries: 622 • Pool: $2.1M
Josh Hale, $500K
Event 37 • $150 NLHE
Entries: 1,635 • Pool: $328,320
Edmund Liu, $56,320
