When play resumes at the Commerce Casino Wednesday, 22 poker players will be battling for one of six spots at the final television table at the Los Angeles Poker Classic. Among the 22 hopefuls is a virtual who’s who list of poker stars, apparently being so close to Hollywood demands star-power.

Leading the way is 2001 World Series of Poker Champion Carlos Mortensen, who was able to overtake the chip lead from Day 3 chip-leader Mark Newhouse (who now sits in second place). Also in contention at the LAPC:

Steve Sung, currently in 9th place with 671k chips. You may recall Sung won the “Stimulus Special” at the 2009 WSOP.

Johnny Chan, currently in 17th place with 406k chips. Chan won back-to-back WSOP championships in 1987 and 1988, and finished 2nd in 1989! His 10 WSOP bracelets rank him second on the all-time list.

Annie Duke, currently in 21st place with 241k chips. Duke, along with Phil Hellmuth, Read the rest of this entry…

Poker News Daily has confirmed that Amanda Leatherman and the WPT have parted ways. Amanda has done an excellent job acting as the hostess of the show, and has interviewed just about every professional poker player at some point.

Leatherman has been the hostess since season 7, taking over the interviewing and special segment role made famous by Shana Hiatt: Other WPT hostesses have included, Courtney Friel, Sabina Gadecki, Layla Kayleigh, and Kimberly Lansing.

Of all the former hostesses, Leatherman definitely had the most poker chops, which she has utilized to make herself one of the best interviewers in all of poker.

The Internet poker forums are buzzing over where Amanda will land next, with most of the speculation revolving around PokerStars recently created North American Poker Tour. Another possibility would be for Leatherman Read the rest of this entry…

The Borgata is one of the only US casinos that is going on the offensive to counteract the falling attendance numbers that have plagued US poker tournaments over the last two years. In late 2009 the Borgata dropped the buy-in of their WPT championship event from $10k to $3,500 and offering a guaranteeing prize-pool.

The decision worked out so well that the Borgata decided on a $3,500 buy-in for their Borgata Poker Championship with a $2 million guaranteed prize-pool. The event didn’t draw quite as many players as the WPT event –likely because of the WPT’s television exposure—but still exceeded their $2 million guaranteed prize-pool with 766 entrants; creating Read the rest of this entry…

Longtime poker pro Hoyt Corkins captured his second World Poker Tour championship this week after outlasting a strong field in the Southern Poker Championship Main Event and was able to outlast Jonathan Kantor in the heads-up duel.

Corkins is one of the unsung poker pros on the tournament trail, who seems better known for his run-ins with Phil Hellmuth –who considers Corkins some kind of luckbox—and his signature cowboy hat Read the rest of this entry…

The Southern Poker Championship is one of my favorite WPT stops –even though this is only the third year of the event—for one simple reason: The tournament has a simple 4-day format. No unnecessary flights for Day-1 play, no unnecessary 5th, 6th, or 7th day to draw out play, the Southern Poker Championship has none of this; it’s just a poker tournament.

Last year’s event saw 283 players compete for a first-prize of just over $1 million, which was taken home by Allen Carter from Dallas Texas. Last year’s tournament Read the rest of this entry…

Despite being a top pro, Daniel Alaei comes in a distant third behind the other two poker pros at the Doyle Brunson Classic final table, Scotty Nguyen and Josh Arieh, in terms of fame in the poker world. However, the power rankings may have shifted slightly after Alaei was able to capture the coveted WPT title, besting Josh Arieh in a heads-up battle.

Alaei now has a WPT title to go along with his two World Series of Poker bracelets, and career earnings approaching $4 million. Alaei’s win puts him in rare company having won a WSOP and WPT tournament in the same calendar year –the $10k Omaha 8 WSOP tournament, and the $15k No Limit Holdem Championship at the Doyle Brunson Classic.

Most poker fans will also recognize Alaei from his appearances on the first three seasons of High Stakes Poker.

Here are the final six placings for the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic:

1. Daniel Alaei, $1,428,430
2. Josh Arieh, $952,290
3. Faraz Jaka, $571,374
4. Shawn Buchanan, $333,302
5. Scotty Nguyen, $249,976
6. Steve O’Dwyer, $202,362

After an action packed day of poker, with a little controversy mixed in, the final table for the Doyle Brunson Classic is set, and will resume today at Bellagio.

The final six players include a good mix of poker’s elite, up-and-comers, and unknowns. Headlining the field –and at the root of the controversial moments—is The Prince of Poker, Scotty Nguyen. Nguyen was involved in two incidents yesterday, one where he simply showed poor etiquette by ridiculing a player who was unaware someone had moved all-in before him –John Juanda verbally declared all-in, and did not move his chips and David Batista was wearing headphones. The second incident was a full breach of poker rules when Scotty flashed his cards with another player still to act.

Nguyen currently sits in 2nd place in chips, trailing only Faraz Jaka: Top poker pros Daniel Alei and Josh Arieh are also still in the hunt for the coveted title.

* Faraz Jaka — 5,385,000
* Scotty Nguyen — 4,900,000
* Daniel Alaei — 3,925,000
* Shawn Buchanan — 2,800,000
* Josh Arieh — 1,710,000
* Steve O’Dwyer — 1,050,000

Doyle Brunson Classic poker tournament starts Monday

Finishing up the year with a $15,000 Main Event at the Bellagio, the WPT is closing out 2009 with a bang.  The 6-day event will conclude on Saturday when the 6 final table participants will square off for the coveted title.

With the $15k buy-in the event typically draws the best of the best in the poker world, which was never more evident than at last year’s final table that included: Hoyt Corkins, Justin “boosted J” Young, Amnon Filippi, Steve Sung, Evan McNiff, and eventual winner Chino Rheem: A group of six solid poker professionals.

One player to keep an eye on will be Jason Mercier, who has been tearing up the tournament trail for the better part of a year. Mercier captured the $5,000 HORSE title during the preliminary events –netting the poker pro over $100k– so he is already riding high going into the $15k Championship Event.

Tommy Vedes has won the 2009 WPT Festa al Lago. A first place prize of $1.2 million is a nice little addition to his bank roll for the player who also made a deep run in this years WSOP Main event. This win has pushed Tommy up to 10^th in the 2009 money list so far this year. Following on from cashes at the London EPT, WPT Merit Cyprus Classic,  Gold Strike World Poker Open, in Tunica, and a 1^st place finish at the $1000 no limit Hold’em game at the same event.

The WPT event which took place at the Bellagio Las Vegas saw 275 players put up the $15,000 buy in to create a prize pool of over $3.5 Million dollars.

After 6 days of intense play Tommy negotiated his way around the final table even though he was the short stack on several occasions.

Vedes pocketed a nice first prize of $1,218,225 dollars for taking down this final table which featured fellow Pro’s Freddy Deeb and the dangerous Kido Pham.

“I feel great,” Vedes told the press after winning.

“It’s unbelievable. I didn’t think it was going to happen so fast. After the World Series, travelling to Europe and everything else, playing this event and shipping it is just amazing.”

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Not that you need many excuses to visit the Bellagio, but with its deep-stack format, and $15,000 entry-fee the Festa al Lago tends to draw poker’s mega-stars to its doors each and every year. This year’s tournament saw a total of 275 runners –down considerably from last year’s numbers of 368– who will be competing for over $4 million in prize-money –First place being worth over $1.2 million.

98 players remain going into Day 3 of the event, and there are some big names sitting atop the leader-board:

Mark Seif currently sits in 2nd place with 473k; Dutch Boyd is nipping at his heels with 453k; David Pham has 365k, good for 7th; and still alive are names like Chau Giang, Justin Bonomo, Mike Matusow, Freddy Deeb, Andy Bloch, Todd Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Josh Arieh, Prahlad Friedman, Barry Greenstein, Kathy Liebert, and Phil Ivey.

Play will resume at noon PDT.