WPT Mandalay Bay Poker Championship

Filed in archive Tournament News on May 31, 2007

Online players are flooding the leaderboard at yet another World Poker Tour event? Granted this tourney is trickling down while the 2007 World Series of Poker gears up down the street at the Rio, there's a rather large $700,000+ first prize being awarded for being the last man or woman standing after this tourney's conclusion tomorrow.

Currently on Day 3 with 13 players remaining Cardplayer magazine is providing the living blogging for this event that you can follow here. Not as good as actually being there but definitely great for the WPT junkies out there who couldn't fly out to the World Poker Tour mandalay bay Poker Championship to rail the event. Then again Cardplayer is providing a live tourney cam for your viewing pleasures that more and more sites (and internet railbirds) are taking advantage of.

Tony Berns is the man for Cardplayer, summarizing the previous day's card slinging for our easy to read pleasure. Here's "Familiar Faces" day two recap from Mr. Berns over the interwaves:

Thirty-three players began play today on Day Three at the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship. Fortunately for our Live Updates Team, table 40 which is featured on our Live Tourney Cam, contains some incredible young pros, quite possibly the leaders of tomorrow as the next generation of poker superstars. Season V PCA Champion from Atlantis Champion Ryan 'Daut44' Daut, came in as the chip leader and is sitting in seat two at our featured table.

Directly to his left in seat three, is Lex 'RaSZi' Veldhuis, a Dutch Online pro who is also good friends with Daut began the day 12th in chips. Lex had a decent showing at Mirage that he hopes to improve upon here. His online following is quite impressive, and we welcome him here at worldpokertour.com.

In seat four is Chantel McNulty, a twenty-two year old online pro who holds her own against all of poker's elite. Small in frame, with electric blue eyes, she charms the table with smiles and compliments while dazzling her opponents by quietly taking their chips.

In seat five, is Shawn Buchanan from Abbotsford, Canada. The twenty-four year old held the chip lead here on day one and headed into day three just one spot shy in second.

Matthew 'MattG1983' Graham sits in seat six. A WPT regular, the twenty-three year old just ran his stack up to 194,000 when his pocket tens cracked Bodog Ari's aces.

Seat eight is twenty-three year old Alan 'Bodog Ari' Engel from Brooklyn, NY. An online star and good friends with Daut and Veldhuis, is hoping to last till the money today after surviving the end of day two.
*Unfortunately Ari has just been eliminated in 30th place.

Rounding out the featured table, is twenty-three year old Thayer 'Thay3r' Rasmussen from St. Petersburg, Florida. This young online pro is also friends with Daut, Veldhuis and Engel. The table has the feel of a home game amongst close friends.

The other three tables feature more well known pros such as: The Grinder, Steve Sung, Danny Wong, JC Alvarado, Chris Bell, Thomas Wahlroos, John Racener and Eugene Todd. And there are still plenty of veterans still remaining: John Juanda, Barry Greenstein, Billy Baxter, David Levi, Chau Giang, and Alan Goehring.

A small field of only 228 that began here on Tuesday, has been narrowed down to an all-star caliber list of pros of all ages and diverse backgrounds. Will the veterans out last the up and coming young guns? We shall see. Stay tuned.