WPT LAPC Day 2: Maimone Stays Hot, Berkey Second After Huge Call
Nick Maimone maintained his chip lead in the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Main Event through Day 2, tripling his start-of-day stack to lead the 111 players who made it to bagging time with 567,400.
His closest competitor is Matt Berkey, who has a number of World Series of Poker final tables and nearly $3 million in live cashes to his credit but has yet to do better than 14th in a WPT event; that came in 2015 at the WPT World Championship. Berkey finished with 493,100.
Also of note on Day 2, registration closed up for the event and a final prize pool was determined. Players were able to enter the event a little into Day 2 and the total wound up being 521 entries for the freezeout, a hair over last year's 515 entries. The prize pool tallied up to just a bit over $5 million and the winner will take home $1,001,110 if no deals are made at the final table.
Maimone came into the day as a sizable chip leader over recent WPT Five Diamond champ James Romero and he continued to run hot. Relatively early in the day, at Level 10 (500/1,000/100), Maimone played a four-bet pot with Stefan Schillhabel where both players had 20,000 in the middle preflop. The board came down Q♠8♠2♥2♣2♠ and Maimone bet all three streets to put Schillhabel all in. The German called down with A♣Q♣ but saw Maimone turn over Q♥Q♦ to drag a pot of around 170,000.
Maimone then ended his night on a high note against another former WPT champ Jordan Cristos. Maimone opened for 5,000 in middle position at 1,000/2,000/300 and Cristos flatted. The flop came KxJx7x, giving Maimone bottom two with J♦7♦. Cristos got his stack of about 80,000 in with aces and bricked the turn and river.
Berkey had a much lesser hand to work on his big pot, as he held A♣Q♠ on a board of J♠7♣5♥2♦4♠ during the same level. Berkey checked and called a bet of 140,000 into about 180,000, winning against a cutoff opponent's 9♠8♠ for a whiffed double-gutter.
Other players making it to Day 3 included two-time WPT champ Mohsin Charania (435,400), Antonio Esfandiari (349,300), Mike Sexton (270,400), Stephen Chidwick (198,400), Dzmitry Urbanovich (150,100), defending champ Dietrich Fast (123,500), and three-time WPT champ Chino Rheem (44,100).
Meanwhile, players eliminated included Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Shawn Buchanan, Phil Laak, Daniel Negreanu, Anthony Zinno Matt Salsberg and JC Tran.
Day 3 play is underway in the LAPC with live updates available here.
Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Stack |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nick Maimone | 567,400 |
| 2 | Matt Berkey | 493,100 |
| 3 | Mohsin Charania | 435,400 |
| 4 | Daniel Strelitz | 410,000 |
| 5 | Bryce Yockey | 354,800 |
| 6 | William Vo | 350,000 |
| 7 | Antonio Esfandiari | 349,300 |
| 8 | Daniel Lawrence | 317,200 |
| 9 | Igor Yaroshevskyy | 314,400 |
| 10 | Mike Sexton | 270,400 |
Photo courtesy of WPT
