The World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic saw the field shrink from 54 players at the beginning of Day 4 down to 18 players by the end of the day. The remaining players will be back at the Commerce Casino on Tuesday to play-down to the televised WPT Final Table of just six, with the winner of the tournament scheduled to take home a massive $1.3 million payday.

Among the players who managed to survive a brutal Day 4 of the tournament was a pair of poker’s top young talent in Noah Schwartz and Dan Kelly. The duo are virtually tied for the chip-lead with Schwartz sitting on a stack of 1,770,000 chips, and Kelly bringing 1,749,000 chips into Day 5’s action.

Another player looking for his first WPT victory is Jason Somerville. Somerville is currently sitting in 7th place on the leader-board with just over 1 million chips. This is Somerville’s first tournament since coming out to the poker world –the first male poker player to do so.

There are also two former WPT Champions still in the hunt, Allen Carter and Joe Hachem. Hachem is of course best known for his 2005 World Series of Poker victory and his tenure as a member of Team PokerStars Pro. The Australian legend recently parted ways with PokerStars and joined the APT as an ambassador.

Poker fans will likely recognize a few other names on the leader-board, including 2010 BLUFF Magazine Player of the Year Sorel Mizzi, two-time Cardplayer Magazine Player of the Year award winner (2000 and 2007) David Pham, online poker legend David “DocSands” Sands, and 2011 WSOP bracelet winner Nick Binger.

Here is a look at the chip counts for the final 18 players in the LA Poker Classic Main Event:

1. Noah Schwartz — 1,770,000

2. Dan Kelly — 1,749,000

3. A.J. Jejelowo — 1,573,000

4. Stephen Chidwick — 1,420,000

5. Jason Dewitt — 1,182,000

6. Sean Jazayeri — 1,126,000

7. Jason Somerville — 1,025,000

8. David Pham — 855,000

9. David Sands — 819,000

10. Joe Hachem — 700,000

11. Elvis Huynh — 675,000

12. Skip Wilson — 625,000

13. Jason Burt — 609,000

14. Sorel Mizzi — 600,000

15. Allen Carter — 580,000

16. Nick Binger — 565,000

17. Daniel Idema — 433,000

18. Shahen Martirosian — 236,000

When play resumes on Tuesday (at Noon local time) the remaining players will find themselves in level 23, with 10,000/20,000 blinds and a 3,000 chip ante. The field will play until just six players remain. The next player eliminated from the LAPC will receive $39,530, while the player who bubbles the televised final table will receive $155,480 for finishing 7th place.

Tags: Allen Carter, Australian Legend, Award Winner, Binger, Bluff Magazine, Commerce Casino, David Pham, David Sands, Dewitt, Joe Hachem, Leader Board, Main Event 1, Online Poker, Poker Fans, Poker Player, Poker World, PokerStars, World Poker Tour, World Series of Poker, WPT

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