695 players entered this year's World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic at the Commerce Casino, enough to create a total prize pool worth nearly $6.7 million dollars (about $300,000 more than last year).

The first two days of play spelled the end to more than three-fourths of that field including top players like Howard Lederer, Allen Cunningham, Gavin Griffin, Shane Schleger, Amit Makhija, Erik Seidel, Steve Sung, Mike Matusow, Kevin Saul, Vanessa Rousso, Phil Hellmuth, and past LAPC champion Alan Goehring.

167 players survived Day one and two of the LAPC, many of whom are considered to be some of the best in the game, players like Phil Ivey, John Phan, Paul Wasicka, JJ Liu, Nenad Medic, Todd Brunson, David Pham, Hevad Khan, Erica Schoenberg, Nick Schulman, Daniel Negreanu, Haralabos Voulgaris and Antonio Esfandiari, who currently sits at the top of the pile with more than 400,000 in tournament chips.

Day 3 of the WPT L.A. Poker Classic starts today at noon PST.  For live updates, chip counts and videos starring PokerRoad's own Amanda Leatherman, go to www.worldpokertour.com.


Story by Mark Anderson