David Pham is the Current Chip Leader at the World Poker Challenge

On March 25, 2007, the World Poker Tour (WPT) was held in Reno to coincide with the World Poker Challenge, the second to last tournament in the WPT before the start of the WPT World Championship starts this coming April in Las Vegas.

There are about 475 players who joined the tournament at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino. The tournament had a $5,000 buy-in cost. The total prize pool reached over $2.2 million with the first place winner taking home around $683,473.

After over 13 hours of game play on the first day of activities, the participants were cut down to 88 players. The top finisher was David "The Dragon" Pham with 186,000 chips. Devin Porter from San Diego, California finished second with about 147,000 chips. JC Trans, who was the runner-up at the LA Poker Classic, finished third with 119,000 chips and David Williams finished fourth with about 115,900 chips.

Some famous professional players of the game of poker who are still in the running for the World Poker Tour title and the seat at the WPT World Championship worth $25,000 like Joe Sebok, with 96,600 chips, Mike Matusow, with 93,800 chips, Mark Seif, with 84,200 chips, Brandon Cantu with 84,100 chips and the sixth place finisher in the WPT Tour last year, Barry Greenstein, with 78,700 chips.

The Poker Professionals who did not make it on the first day of the WPT Tournament will have to wait until the Foxwoods Poker Classic this March 30, 2007 for their next chance, like Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Clonie Gowen, T.J. Cloutier, Phil Laak, John Juanda, Jeff Madsen, Ted Forrest and the Winner of the World Poker Challenge Season III Arnold Spree.

April 05, 2007
Michael Orwell