Mark Seif Leads WPT Turks and Caicos; Organization Headed By Leftist China-Loving CEO Ironically Turns to Democracy to Determine Payout Structure

As discussed yesterday, the World Poker Tour Turks and Caicos Poker Classic created an interesting dilemma, the kind of problem the WPT is uniquely skilled at creating for itself. In order to get players to show to the inaugural Turks tourney, the WPT guaranteed a $1M first prize. However, by the time event registration closed, there was only about $1M in the prize pool.

So Tournament Director Jack McClelland held a vote among remaining players with these options: 1) top 9-10 get paid, 2) top 6 get paid, 3) make it winner-take-all.

Eventually, the players settled on paying out nine places, with first getting $563,325 less than $1M.

Leading the way to get this -$563,325 first prize is Mark Seif, who is stacked at 91,225. He's followed by Lou White with 90,050. Other notables include Perry Friedman (79,575), Erik Cajelais (76,850), Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi (75,050), Evelyn Ng, a woman (56,800), Haralabalososisi Voulgarilosoisis (38,475), Nam Le (38,275), Joe Sebok (26,250), Gavin Smith (15,850), Mike Matusow (14,175), Amnon Filippi (13,775), and Bill Edler (12,350).

Get BJ Nemeth's great Day 1 recap here, and full chip counts here. To learn more about the unfortunately named capital city of Turks and Caicos, Cockburn Town, here.