Bodog Beat

Poker pro Nam Le made a move up the leaderboard late in Day 4 of the WPT LA Poker Classic. (Bodog Beat Image)

The amount of time it will take today to narrow the 18 remaining players down to the 6 who will make up the televised WPT LA Poker Classic final table is anyone's guess, but it should at least be entertaining to watch. There are some seriously big name poker pros still in this field and a "dream" final table could be in our future, hopefully.

Two of the best tournament players in the world, Phil Hellmuth and Phil Ivey, are sitting in the top three separated by online poker pro Blair Hinkle. The two Phils have 16 WSOP bracelets and roughly $16 million in career tournament earnings between them, but neither has a WPT title to their name. The chance to add this notch to their belt is driving them both to the top of the chip counts and, as talented as they are, will be hard to dislodge.

However, Hinkle has been playing the tournament of his life so far and is only 2,000 in chips behind Ivey and about 150,000 ahead of Hellmuth. He is been absorbing hits to his stack calmly and coming back to reclaim those chips like he's been doing this for years.

There is a player in the top five who does already have a WPT title to his name (2006 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star) and experience going deep in tournaments and that player is Nam Le. Le surged up the leaderboard late on Day 4 to get within 300k of the chip lead into fourth place.

Other notables further down include Jennifer Tilly, Theo Tran and David Singer, all of who have the capability of making a run at the final table.

Play gets underway in just about an hour at the Commerce Casino, so stay tuned to the Beat for live updates from the WPT LA Poker Classic.

WPT Online Poker Qualifiers