How can a tournament attract more players than its last run and yet have a lower prize pool? Easy, just halve the buy-in. Last year’s World Poker Tour Legends of Poker event at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles received a little under 300 entrants; this year has 462 but with a $5,000 buy-in as opposed to 2009’s $10,000.

Prahlad Freidman won over $1,000,000 for his victory in the event last year and this year the winner will win $750,000 with the top 45 players gaining a return on investment. On Saturday nearly 300 players competed in the second opening flight of the event with Kathy Liebert playing in her 100th WPT event.


However, despite her fifteen cashes and six WPT final tables Liebert hit the rail early on, yet to find her WPT title. Daniel Negreanu ran into a royal flush to be eliminated late in the day while stepfather/son combo Barry Greenstein and Joe Sebok enter Day 2 in the top twenty chip counts.
The top five chip counts are as follows:


1. Manuel Reyes – 205,350
2. Vinny Vinh – 180,000
3. Raymond Dolan – 165,500
4. Justin Young – 138,950
5. Max Casal – 138,500