The third event on the 2009 WPT schedule, the Legends of Poker, is one of the oldest and most well known stops on the tour, preceding the World Poker Tour itself by several years.

Held at the Bicycle Casino, one of the premier card clubs in Los Angeles, the Legends is an event every pro wants to win.

WPT 2009 in Retrospect: The Legends of Poker

This year was no exception, as 373 people put down $10,000 or a satellite entry for their chance at the title. This created a prize pool of over three and a half million dollars, and a million dollar plus first prize for legends like Allen Cunningham, Men Nguyen and Daniel Negreanu to take a shot at.

The final table would include none of these stars, but had some interesting storylines of its own.

The Legends of Poker Final Table

The final six of Trong Nguyen, Kyle Wilson, Paul Smith, John Phan, Zachary Clark and Amit Makhija gave rise to two major storylines. The first was the appearance of young Zachary Clark. Clark is the nephew of Chip Reese, hailed as the greatest poker player of all time, who passed away tragically at the age of 56 less than a year before.

The other was the battle between John Phan, who had made several WPT final tables including the one immediately prior to this one at the Bellagio, but had never been able to break through for a win, and Amit Makhija, an up and coming star who had won hundreds of thousands of dollars on the Internet.

The Legends of Poker Champion

With a little help, Clark jumped out to second in chips when he got it all in with AJ against Kyle Wilson's pocket kings and an ace came on the flop, resulting in Wilson's elimination. Nguyen was next to go when Makhija picked off his turn bluff with a small pocket pair.

Smith fell fourth when Phan called his all-in bet with pocket eights against Smith's A7. The poker gods teased Smith brutally with a flop of 9 7 7 but then snatched victory away with a runner straight when the board ran out T 6.

Clark did the memory of his Uncle proud by surviving to 3rd place, and finally the stage was set for the matchup between Makhija and Phan. Although Makhija led going into the heads up battle, a cooler hand with pocket tens against Phan's pocket aces helped Phan jump forward and eventually finally collect his World Poker Tour title.