Wed, 03/02/2011 – 01:28 – PokerPages Staff

Season 7 of the High Stakes Poker game show premiered on Sunday evening as new host Norm Macdonald took the reigns for the first time.

Macdonald, who was a surprise choice to replace former favorite Gabe Kaplan, oversaw a star-studded table which included Poker Hall of Famer Doyle Brunson and Team PokerStars Pros Vanessa Selbst and Barry Greenstein.

Selbst got the action underway at the Bellagio, rasing from early position with Ah-Qc. Robert Croak called from the cut off with pocket jacks and Bill Klein (Ks-7s) and David Peat (9d-8h) also came along for the ride.

Selbst fired the first bullet on the 4s-2h-9h flop for $7,600 and Croak min-raised to $15,700. Klein and Peat mucked but Selbst continued her interest in the hand.

A 5h on the turn prompted Selbst to fire a second barrel for $28,400 and Croak finally gave up as the 26 year-old dragged down the pot.

The next big action came when Phil Ruffin limped with pocket threes. Brunson made it $4,900 to go with 7s-5s and Selbst called with pocket queens. Antonio Esfandiari also wanted to see a flop as he limped in with 10d-9d.

Esfandiari bet $17,000 on a 4c-9c-3d board and Ruffin elected to smooth call with his flopped set. Selbst re-raised to $63,800 and Ruffin then made it $117,100 to go.

Selbst tanked before jamming all of her chips into the middle. Ruffin snap called and the 6d and 6h turn and river were no help for Selbst as Ruffin snared the huge $474,100 pot.

Ruffin was also involved in the last notable hand of the evening after meeting Esfandiari’s $6,000 raise with Ad-8h. He was in bad shape as Esfandiari held Ac-Qd and it seemed like he would bleed a significant percentage of his stack when an Ace hit the felt on the flop.

Esfandiari fired an $8,300 bullet only for Ruffin to four bet to $38,300. Esfandiari responded by moving all his chips into the middle, forcing Ruffin to fold.

February 26 2011, Donnie Peters

Day 1 of the 2011 World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic Main Event took place on Friday at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, California. The $10,000 buy-in event attracted 666 runners as registration was open through the first five levels of play and created a prizepool worth $6,393,600. Leading the way into Day 2 will be Mike Baxter. The hedge fund manager and recreational high stakes player wrapped up the day with 125,400 in chips.

As expected, there were plenty of big names in the field. Antonio Esfandiari, Jason Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Faraz Jaka and Erick Lindgren were just a few of the names that showed up. Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey and a late-arriving Phil Hellmuth also joined the mix in this star-studded field. Out of that bunch, it was Mercier whop finished with the largest stack. He was able to building his starting stack of 30,000 up to 106,625 in chips and finish in fifth place overall.

After Level 1, Mercier tweeted, “Have 72.5k already from 30k after 1 level. Lol. @lapokerclassic,” to let the Twitter world know how well he was doing. Although he didn’t give the details, Mercier did catch up with the WPT’s Kimberly Lansing after the day and he discussed how he was able to accumulate so many chips.

Mercier mentioned that he was getting three-bet a lot early on. After he opened preflop with a wired pair of sixes, an opponent three-bet him. This time Mercier made the call and the flop came down . He checked and his opponent bet 600. Mercier made it 2,000 with a check-raise before the player came back with a reraise to 7,600. Mercier clicked it right back to 13,200 and his opponent went all in. Mercier called and was up against two aces. His set of sixes held on the turn and river and he won a big pot early.

Then, Mercier said he was fortunate to get pocket aces against David Paredes’ pocket kings for another 20,000 or so. His performance and Day 1 earned him RISE Clothing Player of the Day.

At the end of the day, 507 players survived to bag up chips and continue on their quest for the WPT title. Here’s a look at the top ten stacks moving into Saturday.

The average stack sits just under 40,000 and the field is still jam packed with notables. A few others who will be returning for Day 2 are Jordan Morgan, John Racener, Ryan Daut nd Dan Heimiller. They all finished with right around and average stack. Marco Johnson is the shortest stack to make it through the day and will come back with only 1,475 chips to play with.

Day 2 begins on Saturday at noon local time. Be sure to check back with PokerNews for the recap.

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