WPT 2009 World Poker Finals Day 1 Lead by Todd Terry

Yesterday was the first day of the World Poker Tour’s 2009 World Poker Finals, a game with a $10,000 buy-in that brought in 353 players, which is a decrease from last year’s 412 in attendance at the Foxwoods Resort Tournament. Despite the fact that many big names in Poker turned up to one of the longest running Poker tournaments that’s still being played today, only one could top the leader board and that was Todd Terry, a Legends of Poker final tableist. While his competition in this previous event included Kevin Schaffel at the Legends of Poker (one of the November 9), he is not participating because he will instead be playing in this weekend’s WSOP Main Event final table. However, Legends champion Prahlad Friedman who defeated Todd Terry is still in the game, but trailing behind Terry who finished the first day with 165,700 as his chip count, while Friedman finished with 67,450. After the first day, Todd Terry is topping the leader board, with a number of known players still in the running for the title. Soheil Shamseddin (2009 Southern Poker Championship final tableist) in 5th place; Michael Mizrachi, otherwise known as “The Grinder” in 6th place; and Alan Sasser who qualified by playing at ClubWPT.com, who finished in 9th place. For some other big names, it just wasn’t in the cards for them to get through to day 2. Yevgeniy Timoshenko (2009 WPT Championship Winner), Olivier Busquet (2009 Borgata Poker Open winner), Matt Glantz (2009 EPT London High Roller champ),  Robert Mizrachi (2009 Aruba Poker Classic runner-up), Chad Brown (2009 Gulf Coast Poker Championship winner) and the 2008 EPT Grand Final Champion Glen Chorny were among the 141 players who left the tournament on day 1, leaving only 206 players who will continue through to the second day’s event at the World Poker Tour’s 2009 World Poker Finals. After day 1, the top chip counts on the leader board were as follows: 1. Todd Terry – 165,700 2. Danny Shiff – 159,525 3. Adam Lippert – 159,000 4. Jack Schanbacher – 148,775 5. Soheil Shamseddin – 126,000 6. Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi – 125,900 7. Chris Moore – 123,700 8. Danny Illingworth – 121,600 9. Alan Sasser – 121,600 10. John Barucci – 119,95