Williams, Zdanowich and Vinci Victorious at LAPC
The LA Poker Classic is more than a month-long celebration of poker. Taking place at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, the Championship event draws out poker's elite. Previous Main Event champs include Gus Hansen, Antonio Esfandiari and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi. A true gem in the WPT crown, the LAPC also contains the star-studded celebrity invitational.
With more than 30 events at stake, there's really something for everyone – the little guys included – at the LAPC. Beginning on January 24, 2008, the LAPC has already anointed five new poker champs. In Event #1, 1,191 players paid $300 to play in the tournament. This brought the prize pool up to $346,581.
Actor Joshua Malina (“The West Wing”), a fixture on the celeb poker circuit, finished strong. He took sixth place and more than $11,000 for his efforts. In the end, Kimya Williams, a resident of Los Angeles, California, took the title and $77,631.00.
Here are the results:
1) Kimya Williams - $77,631 2) Jun Zhou - $48,729 3) Khang Pham - $31,539 4) Jose Hurtado - $20,795 5) David Salcedo - $14,556 6) Joshua Molina - $11,091 7) Carl Kuran - $8,318 8) Robert Wein - $6,065 9) Tyler Isono - $4,332
387 people put up their $300 to play in the $300 Limit Hold'em Tournament. Miami John Cernuto, a Vegas-based professional who has earned three WSOP bracelets and made one WPT final table, the 2005 Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure, finished in seventh place. Cernuto added about $3,500 to his more than four million in lifetime earnings so far. Robert Pacleb of Vallejo, California won the event and over $30,000 in cash.
These are the final standings:
1) John Pacleb - $30,408 2) Frank Mariani - $17,005 3) Joseph Bibartola - $11,543 4) Donald Oleson - $7,996 5) Anthony Tran - $5,969 6) Paul Nason - $4,730 7) John Cernuto - $3,547 8) Chuck Futrell - $2,646 9) Jack Boghossian - $1,914
Stan Zdanowich took down the third event at the 2008 LAPC. The mixed games specialist who has earned more than $118,000 in tourneys to date, likes limit varieties of poker. His biggest cash prior to this event was back in 1998 at the Big Poker Oktober, also held at the Bike.
For the win in the $300 buy-in Omaha Hi-Lo tournament, Stan collected $28,918. He defeated 367 other players en route to the championship.
Here are the results:
1) Stan Zdanowich - $28,918 2) David Kim - $16,170 3) Matt Ardo - $10,977 4) Alan Hornbacher - $7,603 5) David McGee - $5,676 6) Nikolai Orlov - $4,498 7) Manolito Navarro - $3,373 8) Hang Lam - $2,517 9) Colin Gordon - $1,820
811 entrants took to the felt in Event #4 at the LA Poker Classic. 81 made bank in the $300 buy-in NLHE tournament which featured 1107 rebuys and 445 add-ons. The total prize pool was a tasty $687,633. Sharing in a piece of that pie was Chris Bjorin, winner of two WPT Seniors' titles and Jean-Robert Bellande. Bellande, of course, made headlines last year for his participation in the reality TV series “Survivor: China”. Bellande finished in fourteenth place, narrowly missing the final table. The bad boy of poker collected $5,776 for his efforts.
Buddy Lavassani won the day and more than $158k.
These are the final standings:
1) Buddy Lavassani - $158,144 2) Denny Lee - $99,569 3) Diane Nguyen - $63,950 4) Phat Chung - $42,633 5) Adrian Cimpan - $30,256 6) Glen Bean - $23,036 7) John Lombard - $17,191 8) Le Banh - $12,721 9) Jordan Siegel - $9,283
Hieu Ngoc “Tony” Ma, the 1999 CardPlayer Player of the Year, is the winner of two WSOP bracelets. The Vietnamese-born pokerati has lifetime tournament earnings in excess of $4,000,000 and is a threat in any brand of the game. It's no surprise then that Ma took home some cash in the first Seven Card Stud event at the 2008 LAPC. His sixteenth place finish netted him only $990, but we're sure we haven't heard the last from Ma at the LAPC this year.
Making his second final table appearance of the series so far was Miami John Cernuto. Cernuto put an additional $4,190 in his bank account for his fifth place finish in this $500 buy-in tournament. The top spot went to another rounder by the name of Paul Vinci.
Here are the results:
1) Paul Vinci - $19,850 2) Di Xia - $11,210 3) Randy Holland - $7,980 4) Tommi Han - $5,540 5) John Cernuto - $4,190 6) Sirous Baghchehsaraie - $3,230 7) Mitchell Ledis - $2,570 8) Susan Lee - $1,910