The Legends of Poker took place between August 25 and August 31 2005. Buy-in was fixed at $5,000 and 858 participants entered the tournament. The prize pool totaled to $4,196,565 with the winner of the first prize bagging home a grand sum of $1,125,900. The Legends of Poker game was held in the Bicycle Casino of Bell Gardens, California.

For a long time in the final table held on 31 August 2005, professional poker player Kenna James was in the lead. However, the tables turned towards the end of the game with victory going to Alex Kahaner.

A flop in the form of Q-9-2 pulled James down, while giving Kahaner the edge of a lead of 5-1. The first player to go out was Kevin O’Donnell with $208,500 as he left the game after 3 hours and 25 minutes.

Hollywood director Todd Phillips was the next to leave the game with a total of $250,200 after he played his move with 700k. It took only four more hands for James to kick out the next player, Tim Phan who had moved in with 540k.

Having been drowned by the river, Phan left the game with $291,900. Now the game was just left with James and Kahaner. While it did look like James had a winning streak with a far lead consisting of 4.7 million out of a total of approximately 8.39 million in total play. This did not last long before Kahaner started taking over the winning streak.

With O’Donnell and Phan’s exit, only 3 players were left in the game. The blinds reached 100k-200k with 20k antes and the chip count stood as such: James had 3,680,000, Kahaner with 3,380,000 and Jake Minter with 1,320,000. It was a long game and 27 hands later, dealer/poker player Minter had to cash out with a sum amounting to $333,600.

The game was then between Kahaner and James, with James still in the lead. The tables turned 27 hands later where James found himself short-chipped. Three hands after this, Kahaner made a tactical move and emerged victorious with the grand sum of $1,125,900.

- Thomas Hardy