WPT LA Poker Classic Down To 18; Schwartz Leads

On Day 4 of the WPT LA Poker Classic, the 54 hopefuls still remaining in the tournament battled down to just 18 players, who are all now guaranteed at least $39,530 each.
However, all eyes will instead be on taking home the $1,370,240 first place prize, and so far leading the field going into Day 5 is Noah Schwartz (pictured right). The young, Florida pro started Day 3 on just 20,700 chips which he then boosted to 685k before Day 4 saw his stack grow further to an impressive 1.77 million. He was helped on his way by winning a massive 2 million plus pot against Larry Limpan with all the money going-in on a 5-4-3 flop, with Schwartz holding a flopped set of threes to his opponent’s A-K.
Next, Dan “djk123″ Kelly is finely poised in second spot with 1.749 million in front of him, with a number of other notable names still left in contention including David Sands, Sorel Mizzi, Nick Binger, Jason Dewitt, Allen Carter, David Pham, and 2005 WSOP Main Event winner Joe Hachem.
Jason Somerville also experienced a swingy day in which he was down to 450k at one point, before finishing the day in 7th with a 1.025 million stack.
Amongst those players hitting the rail on Day was the start of the day chip leader Tuan Phan (1.14m), who lost several size-able pots before getting his last 500k in pre-flop holding A-K to Sean Jazayeri’s pocket aces. After 2 and a half hours of play, Tuan Phan was subsequently out in 43rd place for $23,720.
Other players eliminated on the day included Christian Harder (53rd), Amit Makhija (50th), Matt Marafioti (49th), Brandon Meyers (33rd), Dave Baker (32nd) and Tom Marchese (25th).
Joe Tehan, too, had to cope with the disappointment of being out in 23rd ($34,260), and as he explained via twitter:
“Didn’t play a hand for 2 hours, finally utg opens to 27, sb calls, I rr AK to 105k from bb, utg shoves AT for 550k at 6/12k. T on flop! Ugh.”
The 18 remaining players will return to the Commerce Casino at 12pm PT today, where they will play down to a final table of six.
Here are the top ten chip counts going into Day 5:
1. Noah Schwartz – 1.77m
2. Dan Kelly – 1.749m
3. AJ Jejelowo – 1.573m
4. Stephen Chidwick – 1.42m
5. Jason Dewitt – 1.182m
6. Sean Jazayeri – 1.126m
7. Jason Somerville – 1.025m
8. David Pham – 855k
9. David Sands – 819k
10. Joe Hachem – 700k