When the World Series of Poker reached their “November Nine” last month, the poker media focused their attention on chip leader Darvin Moon and veteran pro Phil Ivey. At the World Poker Tour Legends of Poker Main Event, another member of that final table is making a story of his own. Steven Begleiter leads the event with 426,100 in chips. He also led at the end of Day 1.
Mr. Begleiter’s closest competition is poker pro Prahlad Friedman with 382,700 chips. Mr. Friedman has never made a WPT final table, but he does have a WSOP bracelet from the 2003 US$1500 buy-in pot-limit hold’em event. He has also been featured on several WSOP broadcasts over the last few years, the most infamous of which involved a disagreement with poker pro Jeffrey Lisandro during the 2006 WSOP Main Event.
Another notable poker pro in contention for his first WPT title is Billy Baxter. Mr. Baxter has seven WSOP bracelets, with his most recent coming in the US$1500 buy-in Razz event in 2002. While most of his experience comes from draw poker games during the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Baxter does have experience at a WPT final table; he finished third at last year’s WPT Invitational and earned US$20,000.
When play restarts on Monday, seventy-three of the two hundred seventy-nine who began the tournament will take their seats. Only the final twenty-seven survivors remaining will see a return on their investment, with the last six to make their appearances on the TV final table. The final table for the WPT Legends of Poker US$10,000 buy-in Main Event will start Wednesday 26 August and will be broadcast early next year.
The top prize will be US$1,009,000 and an entry into the US$25000 buy-in World Poker Tour Championship Event at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
