Day 1

WPT Turks & Caicos, Day 1 Recap
The Million-Dollar Question: "How Many Players Get Paid?"

Every season of the World Poker Tour has featured at least one tournament in a tropical location, breaking the normal confines of windowless casino poker. For Season VI, the WPT visits the Turks and Caicos Islands for the first time, setting up at Club Med. To encourage attendance, the inaugural Turks & Caicos Poker Classic featured a guaranteed $1 million prize for first place -- an impressive prize for a $7,500 buy-in event. That million dollars would become the hot topic of the day.

Six days of poker were originally scheduled, with two separate starting days. But with a relatively small turnout for a WPT event, organizers decided to have everyone start at once -- converting Day 1a into a day off, and turning Day 1b into a good old-fashioned Day 1.

Play began on Wednesday about 12:35 pm with 115 players. When registration finally closed around 4:00 pm, the field had reached 137 -- creating a total prizepool around a million dollars. Since the WPT doesn't allow deals for the prize money, the prize structure would have the promised $1 million prize for first place, but $0 for everyone else. (Paying just 0.73% of the field, compared to a standard of 8-10%.)

Tournament Director Jack McClelland felt that the best solution was to have the players vote on the prize structure -- did they want to keep the million dollars for first place, or spread the wealth a bit? McClelland offered separate prize structures based on paying the top 9 or 10 places, the top 6, or keeping it as winner-take-all.

In the first round of voting, just 16 out of 99 votes were cast to keep the winner-take-all format. The majority voted for either paying nine or six places, so a runoff was held between those two options. In the second round of voting, 72% of the players chose to pay the top nine places. Here is the agreed-upon official prize structure:

1st:  $436,675
2nd:  $225,000
3rd:  $125,000
4th:  $70,000
5th:  $50,000
6th:  $30,000
7th:  $25,000
8th:  $20,000
9th:  $15,000

There was no vocal dissent against breaking up the first place guarantee. Speaking with a few of the 16 players who originally voted for winner-take-all, their attitude seemed more experimental ("Wouldn't it be cool?") or confident ("I plan to win, so why not put all the money in first place?") than anything else. Once the revised payout structure was announced, we didn't hear complaints from any of the players.

Of course, the money bubble is still a few days away; first, there's a little matter of surviving Day 1.

It was a pro-heavy field, with most tables featuring three or four notable players. Current Card Player coverboy Victor Ramdin was the first casualty of the day, just ten minutes after play began. Rami "ARBIANIGHT" Boukai flopped a full house (nines full of eights), and when Ramdin turned a lower full house (eights full of tens), his fate was sealed. The chip stacks were counted down, and Boukai had enough chips to send Ramdin to the beach. Boukai followed that early momentum with a strong day to finish in the top 10.

Day 1 would be relatively quick (just four levels), and action ended around 7:30 pm. That was enough time to shrink the field down from 137 players to 84. Here's a look at the top 10 chipleaders, along with some notables further back in the pack. (The average chip count is about 32,600.)

1.  Mark Seif  -  91,225
2.  Lou White  -  90,050
3.  Maros "Premier" Lechman  -  88,100
4.  Perry Friedman  -  79,575
5.  Hieu Nguyen  -  78,000
6.  Erik Cajelais  -  76,850
7.  Michael Mizrachi  -  75,050
8.  Fred Berger  -  67,250
9.  Rami "ARBIANIGHT" Boukai  -  64,125
10.  Johan Storakers  -  63,400

12.  Evelyn Ng  -  56,800
19.  Steve Sung  -  41,500
23.  Haralabos Voulgaris  -  38,475
25.  Nam Le  -  38,275
29.  Danny Wong  -  33,925
45.  Joe Sebok  -  26,250
70.  Gavin Smith  -  15,850
72.  Mike Matusow  -  14,175
73.  Amnon Filippi  -  13,775
75.  Bill Edler  -  12,350

Action resumes on Thursday (Day 2) at 2:00 pm EDT, giving the players a little extra time to enjoy the morning sun (or stay out a little later at night).

Day 2

The players have bagged up their chips and day two has ended. The remaining 30 players will return tomorrow at 2 p.m. They will play five more levels tomorrow and see how many people remain. At that time they will make a decision if they want to play into the night to reach a final six.

Here are the official chip counts and seating assignments for the start of Day 3:

TABLE #1
1.  Michael Branson  -  32,200
2.  Trevor Hebert  -  175,000
3.  Mark Seif  -  41,400
4.  Maros "Premier" Lechman  -  25,200
5.  Jumphol Srinark  -  145,100
6.  Alan Cutler  -  58,200
7.  Greg Monaldi  -  16,500
8.  Hieu Nguyen  -  86,500
9. 

TABLE #2
1.  Chris Smith  -  181,600
2.  Gavin Smith  -  85,000
3.  Will Fallia  -  126,500
4.  Claudio Fonseca  -  59,400
5.  Rami "ARBIANIGHT" Boukai  -  235,700
6.  Robbie Been  -  100,100
7.  Andrew Ashcroft  -  51,300
8.  Antonio Salario  -  35,000
9. 

TABLE #3
1.  Steve Sung  -  110,100
2.  Jim "KrazyKanuck" Worth  -  33,000
3.  Alan "TheUsher" Sass  -  177,100
4.  Quentin Jones  -  83,900
5.  Mary Lou Papachristou  -  14,000
6.  Sean Astwood  -  40,600
7.  Donavan Ryan  -  125,500
8. 
9. 

TABLE #4
1.  Jorn "JornX" Walthaus  -  52,000
2.  Rhynie Campbell  -  83,700
3.  Nam Le  -  103,000
4.  Johan Storakers  -  147,500
5.  Erik Cajelais  -  208,100
6.  Salvatore Giusti  -  25,000
7.  Isaac "westmenloAA" Baron  -  132,700
8. 
9. 

Day 3

While most of the original 137 players enjoyed the white sands and turquoise waters of beautiful Providenciales Island, 30 players sacrificed their third consecutive day of sun in attempts to make the final six, and the televised World Poker Tour final table. Big names started the day, but Jim "KrazyKanuck" Worth, Gavin Smith, Mark Seif, and Johan Storakers were all sent to the beach early. That left live pros Erik Cajelais, Steve Sung, and former WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star champion Nam Le to challenge for the TV table. Live pros weren’t the only story, top internet players went deep, and one’s play stood above the rest.

Alan “TheUsher” Sass may not be a household name to the average poker fan, but he is well known to the online world. His play today has demonstrated how skillful a player he is, including one hand in which he made a call…with jack high. Action was folded to Trevor Hebert in the small blind, he limped, and Sass checked. The flop came [Qs7d4c] and Hebert bets $12,000. Sass made the call, and the turn brought the [7h]. Both players checked, and the river was the [Kd]. Hebert bet out $20,000 and Sass pondered his next move. He elected to call, and Hebert instantly fired his cards into the muck. As the pot is being pushed to Sass, he grabbed his cards and rolled over [Jc2c] for jack high.

Sass wasn’t done making hero calls, and his next victim was Sung. Sass opened the action from the button for $11,000 and both Nam Le and Steve Sung called from the blinds. The flops rolls out [9d9s7h] and Nam and Sung both check. Sass fires out $19,000, Nam folds and Sung makes the call. Both players check the [7s] turn and the river brings the [Jh]. Sung bets $35,000 and Sass makes the call. Sass tabled [Ah10s] and Sung mucked his hand.

Sung never recovered, and was eliminated a short time later by Robert Been. Been raised to $17,000 from under the gun, and Sung called from the big blind. The flop came [10d9c8c], Sung checked and Been bet $30,000. Sung moved all in for his remaining $117,000, and Been insta-called with [Kh 10s]. Sung was drawing better then 50 percent with [KcQc], and needed to spike a club, queen or jack to win the hand. The next two cards fell [3h10h] sending Sung to the rail in 11th place worth...$0.

With the final table set, the Players Club Casino announced they would pay the 10th-place finisher the cost of the original buy in, $7,500. Been, who entered the final table as the chip leader, would eventually become the beneficiary of the added cash. After losing a large hand to Cajelais, Been raised under the gun to $20,000 and Cajelais reraised to $60,000 from the cutoff. Been moved all in for around $200,000, and Cajelais quickly called with [KdKh]. Been showed [AsQd], and the board was no help. Been was sent home in 10th for $7,500.

It took just a short amount of time to bust the next two players, internet pros Isaac “westmenloAA” Baron and Rami "ARBIANIGHT" Boukai were the next two eliminated, and play was down to the TV bubble. On the final hand of play, Jumphol Srinark limped under the gun for $8,000, Cajelais raised from the big blind to $38,000, Srinark moved all in, and Cajelais immediately called with [AsKs]. Srinark showed [8d8h] and was racing. Cajelais spiked an ace and king to eliminate Srinark in seventh place, earning $25,000.

Players will have a day off Saturday, and the final table will begin at 10 a.m. EDT Sunday. Here are the official chips by seat assignment:

Seat No. 1 - Nam Le - $232,000
Seat No. 2 - Erik Cajelais - $1,086,000
Seat No. 3 - Rhynie Campbell - $275,000
Seat No. 4 - Chris Smith - $301,000
Seat No. 5 - Trevor Hebert - $400,000
Seat No. 6 - Alan "TheUsher" Sass - $466,000