LA Poker Classic Main Event Begins Today

This place will be the center of the poker universe for the next week.

With the NAPT Venetian now out of the way the poker world’s attention is shifting back to its customary late February home, the LA Poker Classic, for one of the year’s biggest tournaments.

The main event of this venerable tournament series has been a member of the World Poker Tour since the show’s first season, and it has drawn at least 665 players every year since 2006. The high water mark came in 2007 when 791 players turned up and Eric Hershler won $2.4 million by defeating tournament poker powerhouse J.C. Tran in heads-up play. Other players who have won the LAPC main event during the TV era include two-time WPT winners Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Cornel Andrew Cimpan and the incomparable Phil Ivey.

This year’s LA Poker Classic main event will go on for six days, culminating in the six-handed WPT television table on March 4th. Besides the question of who will win one what’s easily one biggest North American poker tournaments of the year outside of the World Series of Poker, there will be a few other stories to keep an eye on this year. Tournament rounder Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri has already won three events at this year’s LAPC, including the $2,100 Ironman tourney, but even a final table finish in the main event would more than double his profit for the series. Then there’s the last longer prop bet between poker pros Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith, and Jeff Madsen, where the winner’s only reward is not being forced to humiliate himself by getting a tattoo of the others’ faces on his body. And with almost all of poker‘s elite guaranteed to turn up there’s always the chance of a repeat champion.

Action gets underway at noon PT today at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles.