Noam Muallem Leads 113 Players into Day 2 of WPT500 Los Angeles at The Gardens Casino

By Tim Duckworth

Welcome back to The Gardens Casino in Hawaiian Gardens, California, for Day 2 of WPT500 Los Angeles. The $1 million prize pool guarantee has been met as 2,310 entrants took a seat throughout one of the 16 starting flights. With each opening flight playing down to the final 5% of the field, a total of 114 players survived into Day 2 as one of those players – Anthony Kim – bagging multiple stacks.

Leading the 113 players returning for Day 2 action is Noam Muallem (pictured above) who topped Day 1O with 1,191,000 in chips. Muallem edged out tournament circuit regular Nick Pupillo (pictured below) who finished with 1,187,000 on Day 1K. No other players sits in the seven-figure club, but three players bagged over 900,000 with Austin Yoo (976,000), Kamal Bilal (934,000), and Nguyen Nguyen (914,000) all rounding out the top five chip counts.

Players also sitting up top on the leaderboard include Season XVIII WPT Legends of Poker third-place finisher Jared Griener (842,000), WPT Champions Club member Griffin Paul (807,000), and 2018 WPT500 Los Angeles third-place finisher Aaron Messmer (770,000). Other notables still in contention include WPT Champions Club members Matt Salsberg and Adam Weinraub.

To view the WPT500 Los Angeles Day 2 Seating Draw, click here.

The final 113 players are all guaranteed $1,950, while reaching the final table of nine will see them guaranteed a $16,490 payday. For the player that can navigate their way to the top to claim the WPT500 Los Angeles title for 2020, they will take home the $174,850 first-place prize.

To view the complete WPT500 Los Angeles payouts, click here.

The stage is now set for Day 2 of WPT500 Los Angeles set to begin at 1 p.m. (PT) from The Gardens Casino. Stay tuned right here to WPT.com for the exclusive live coverage of the tournament from start to finish to see who becomes the WPT500 Los Angeles champion from The Gardens Casino.

Photography by Jamie Thomson / PokerPhotoArchive

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