Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Ivey Near Top of Leaderboard After Day 1

Published on December 4th, 2010 8:22 am EST

The Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic got underway on Friday afternoon, with Ryan "g0lfa" D'Angelo finishing as the Day 1 chip leader.

Ryan "g0lfa" D'Angelo, who owns three WCOOP bracelets, surged to the chip lead late on Day 1 thanks to a big pot that he won against Joseph Cheong. Cheong decided to commit the last of his chips pre-flop holding A-J, while D'Angelo made the call with pocket Jacks. The pocket Jacks held up, allowing D'Angelo to finish Day 1 as the tournament chip leader with 192,500 chips.

Many big names turned out for this event, including the likes of Phil Ivey, Michael Mizrachi and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. In total, 391 players signed up to play in this $10k buy-in event, with a few more players (including the likes of Howard Lederer and Andy Bloch) expected to register on Saturday. The turnout is bigger compared to last year's event, but the prize pool will be smaller due to the reduced buy-in ($15k down to $10k).

A number of big names had strong starts on Friday, with Antonio Esfandiari (149,550) and Phil Ivey (143,225) both finishing with top 10 stacks.

Here is how the top of the leaderboard looks heading into Day 2 on Saturday:

Ryan D'Angelo, 192,500
Amirouddine Allbay, 185,200
Albert Kim, 157,100
Antonio Esfandiari, 149,550
Niema Mostafavi, 145,800
Phil Ivey, 143,225
Michael Gracz, 138,850
Matt Kelkoan, 133,775
Steven Burkholder, 133,275
Kirk Morrison, 130,075

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According to tournament organizers, 330 of the 391 registered players managed to survive through to Day 2 on Saturday. Some of the players who didn't make it through to Day 2 were:

Scott Seiver
Nick Schulman
Vanessa Selbst
Justin Bonomo
Joe Sebok

Players such as Barry Greenstein, Chad Batista and Yevgeniy Timoshenko are still alive in the tournament, but all will be nursing below average stacks when Day 2 gets underway at 12 pm local time on Saturday.

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Last year's event was won by Daniel Alaei, who ended up taking home $1,428,430 for his victory.


Photo: GreasieWheels.com

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Filed Under: Tournament Results