After two levels of play on day 3 at the Legends of Poker WPT event the field is down to 41 players with the top 27 making the money in a very top heavy payout structure. Twenty players were eliminated during the first level today and another 13 fell in the second level of play, leaving the field that much closer to being in the money.

Recent eliminations included David “DocSands” Sands, Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little, Brian “sn8wman” Hawkins and Greg “FBT” Mueller. Sands (right) opened a pot for 7,200 at the 1,200 / 2,400 blind level and Prahlad Friedman raised to 20k. The action folded back to Sands who put the rest of his 72k stack into the middle. Friedman called with pocket eights and they held up against the AJ to send Sands to the sidelines short of making the money. Prahlad was up to 550k after the hand.

Hawkins (left) fell to Josh “Sdbouble” Schlein. Brian opened the pot from late position for 6,400 and Josh made the call from the button. On the K53 flop Hawkins check called a 7,700 bet from Schlein to see the 9 turn. Hawkins then led out for 12,400 leaving himself less than 30k behind. He was faced with a raise to 45k from Schlein which would cover his remaining chips. Hawkins paused for a moment, almost sure he was beat but unable to fold with so few chips behind. “I’m sure you’ve got it,” Hawkins said before putting the last of his chips in the middle and turning over his K-J. Schlein had him notched with the KQ and with the A on the river Hawkins was eliminated from the tournament. Schlein had avoided elimination earlier when his KK was all in preflop against pocket aces, but a king on the river saved Schlein and he has prospered since.

Also doing well is James “mig.com” Mackey. Bobby Suer ran pocket queens into Mackey’s kings and after the board ran out the kings held up to eliminate Suer and add to Mackey’s stack. By the end of the 2nd level Mackey was over 500k and in the top 5 in chip counts, trailing chip leader Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire and Friedman but not by much. Carter “ckingusc” King finished level 2 with a mound of chips, but mostly the 100 and 500 denomination chips. His pile still totaled up to just over 200k, giving him room to work going into the 1,500 / 3,000 blind level. Adam “Roothlus” Levy picked up some chips but is still one of the shorter stacks with 125k going into the next level.

Players Still In With 41 Left:

• August 24, 2009 -- End of Day 2
• August 24, 2009 -- Legends of Poker 2009 Day 3 Gallery
• August 25, 2009 -- Bonus Play
• August 24, 2009 -- Unlucky Seven