JC Tran Leads Legends of Poker, WPT One Day From PokerGO Premier

Day 3 of the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event was a historic day for the World Poker Tour. After the 89-player field worked their way into the money, with 81 players cashing in the $4,000 buy-in event, the World Poker Tour’s one-billionth prize dollar was awarded. 47^th-place finisher TJ Shepard was “the billionth dollar man” and after earning entry into next year’s WPT Legends of Poker for the historic payout, the rest of the field began their race to the finish.

24 players crossed the Day 3 finish line and JC Tran, a two-time WPT winner and former WPT Player of the Year, ended the day with the biggest stack with just over 3 million. Steven Tabb’s 2,128,000-chip bag finished 2^nd and David “ODB” Baker, with 1,675,000, rounded out the top-three. Two-time World Poker Tour winner Tuan Le also bagged a top-ten stack. He’ll return looking for his first WPT victory in over a decade, while another player will look for their first-career victory.

Earlier this month, Phil Hellmuth was announced as the newest member of the WPT Broadcast Team, replacing Tony Dunst as the WPT’s Raw Deal analyst. Now, Hellmuth has a chance to make a big splash in his first WPT event since that announcement, as he’s still alive with three tables remaining.

Hellmuth isn’t the only big name remaining. High Rollers David Sands and Jason Les are both below the chip average, but in contention, with WPT Champions Club member Marvin Rettenmaier and Garret Greer also below that threshold.

Players that return for Day 4 are guaranteed $17,430 but the goal of the penultimate day of the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event will be to get to the six-handed final table. That is where the lion’s share of a $2.7 million prize pool awaits, with $668,692 set aside for the eventual winner. The WPT Live Updates team will follow the action through Day 4, with Poker Central recapping the action once the final table is reached.

Tomorrow, the attention shifts to PokerGO. The WPT Legends of Poker Main Event final table will be the first WPT final table to be streamed live on poker’s premier streaming platform. The action is set to begin at 4:30 PM PT and more information can be found here.