After four days of action, the WPT Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino played down from 763 to six. JC Tran leads the final table and Phil Hellmuth is third overall. Also rounding out the final table... Marvin Rettenmaier, Art Papazyan, Adam Swan, and D.J. Alexander. Hellmuth made his fifth final table on the WPT, but has yet to win a title. Tran and Rettenmaier are double-winners and seeking their third WPT title. An elite gorup of five players are tied for most WPT wins with three. First place pays out $668,692.
Season 16 of the World Poker Tour kicked off with a $4,000 buy in Main Event at the 2017 Legends of Poker. The field this year was 763 runners deep and the total prize pool was over $2.7M. After four days of action, the field got liquidated down to the final six, including Phil Hellmuth and chipleader J.C. Tran.
Phil Hellmuth claims he's the greats tournament player of all time. He'll quickly point out his 14 WSOP bracelets as proof. And he might have a valid point if he wasn't such a braggard about it. Hellmuth has figured out how to win tournaments in different eras... but he had yet to break through to the winner's circle at the World Poker Tour. Hellmuth previously final tabled four other WPT events, but walked away empty-handed each time. However, at the Bicycle Casino outside of Los Angeles, Hellmuth went a deep run in the Main Event to secure himself a spot at the final table. The Poker Brat ended Day 4 third overall in chips.
Two players out of the final six have previous shipped WPT titles. And both of them binked twice. Aside from Hellmuth seeking his first WPT win, the other major story surrounds a pair of double-winners -- JC Tran and Marvin Rettenmaier. Tran and Rettenmaier are only one win away from securing a third WPT crown, which would thurst them into an elite club of three-time champs. Five players are tied for most WPT wins: Gus Hansen, Carlos Mortensen, Chino Rheem, Anthony Zinno, and Darren Elias. Alas, Tran is the favorite with the big stack, while Rettenmaier comes into the final table as the shorty.
Doc Sands bubbled off the final table in seventh place. His pocket Kings were snapped off by J.C. Tran's Ace-Queen. Sands took home $72,985. Tran surged to almost 8.3M and the final table was set. Art Papazyan is second overall with 6M and Hellmuth is third with 2.9M. Marvin Rettenmaier is shortstacked with only 1.2M. If he wants a third title, he has a lot of work cut out for him.
On Day 4, only 24 players were still in the hunt. Short-stacked Allan Le went busto in 24th. His brother Tuan Le was knocked out in 19th place. Garret Greer busted in 20th. Jason Les went out in 17th place. Steve Tabb was out in 14th. David ODB Baker's deep run ended in 11th place. He won $31,510.
First place pays out nearly $669K. And sixth place only locked up $91K. Huge difference. The final table will begin at 4pm local time. You can watch it live streamed on PokerGO, but you will have to pay for a subscription to access the final table. You can always follow along for hand-for-hand updates over at WPT's live blog.
WPT Legends of Poker
Buy-in: $4,000
Entrants: 763
Prize Pool: $2,738,407
Payouts: 81
Final Table Payouts:
1. $668,692
2. $364,370
3. $217,040
4. $161,490
5. $120,775
6. $91,825
Chip Counts:
J.C. Tran 8,295,000
Art Papazyan 6,005,000
Phil Hellmuth 2,940,000
D.J. Alexander 2,730,000
Adam Swan 1,655,000
Marvin Rettenmaier 1,225,000
