At the close of the World Poker Tour Marrakech Main Event Day 2, Ian Marmion of Ireland led a field of roughly 50 runners, all of whom are hoping for the first-place prize of nearly 200k Euro in addition to a $25k seat at the WPT Bellagio Main Event.
Marmion faces some extremely stiff competition, however, in the form of Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Jonathan Duhamel. ElkY, who holds 293k chips, is undoubtedly seeking redemption following his kickboxing loss to Lex Veldhuis. Duhamel, a former WSOP Main Event winner, is even more dangerous at 365k chips. Marmion holds 379k, a small margin of leadership by anyone’s measure.
Much of Duhamel’s sizable stack came courtesy of David Sacksick. In the key hand, Sacksick bet 7,000 while Duhamel raised to 19,000 with the blinds set to 1,200 / 1,400. Sacksick pushed all-in, wagering 200k chips on K-7 offsuit. Duhamel called with pocket kings, and the board offered no help to either player. With his stack exceeding 300k, Duhamel tightened up his play for the rest of the day and will enter Day 3 as the most dangerous force in action.
Duhamel, ElkY and Marmion aren’t the only big-name pros remaining in WPT Marrakech. Other players with dangerous stacks include Arnaud Mattern (130k), Suriner Sunar (180k) and Sam El Sayed (246k). Some of those who failed to make it through Day 2 included Barny Boatman, Leo Margets, Roger Hairabedian, Alain Roy, Marc Inizan, Brandon Cantu, Davidi Kitai and Eugene Katchalov.
Although everyone has their eyes set firmly on the final table, the top 33 spots at WPT Marrakech will receive money prizes. The lowest payout at the final table, which will include nine runners, is over 23k Euro.
The 2011 edition of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event came to a close yesterday following a brutal day that saw 15 runners play down to a winner. Although Sangeeth Mohan entered the day as the chip leader, his momentum ran out part way through the day, allowing Randy Lew of Team PokerStars Online to score the victory along with 3,772,000 HKD.
All 15 players were jockeying to avoid elimination prior to the final table, but noted pros including Baton Fung, Daoxing Chen, Tsugunari Toma, Josh Barrett and Sparrow Cheung came up short. Mohan, the former chip leader, was indeed the final table bubble-boy when he pushed all-in with Q-Q on a Q-10-4 board against Kai Yat Fam. Fam held K-J suited, and was able to score a flush on the turn to dominate Mohan’s trips.
Despite his relatively extensive experience, David Steike was the first eliminated from the final table. He made a desperate all-in call with 7-4 offsuit only to run into the pocket aces of Daniel Nordstrom. Zheng Tai Tan was then eliminated in 8th place after his 2-2 was dominated by the 8-8 of Jeff Rossiter. Nordstrom himself then struck out in 7th place, also thanks to Rossiter.
It didn’t take long to get to three-handed play, as Fabian Spielmann, Zuo Wang and Kai Yat Fam quickly hit the rail in 4th, 5th and 6th places, respectively. Rossiter held the chip lead and this point, courtesy of his string of knock-outs, but was soon crippled by Lew and ultimately eliminated by Jimmy Pan with A-Q over 10-9.
Pan and Lew traded the chip lead several times during heads-up play, but Lew finally managed to bag up the win with two-pair on Q-10. This marks the biggest live tournament win in Lew’s career, primarily marked by success in online cash games. He previously won $100k in the 2011 Aussie Millions.
After five days of action including two starting days, the 2011 edition of the World Poker Tour Jacksonville Main Event is now in the books. Following 149 hands of final table play, Anthony Ruberto secured the title on the strength of K-J offsuit, which improved to a pair of jacks on the flop. Ruberto received a massive first-place prize of $326k, as well as a WPT World Championship seat worth $25k.
Final table play began in a rather guarded manner, with little action occurring until hand 34 when second-place contender Vitor Coelho doubled up through Ruberto on all-in trip queens play.
The first elimination didn’t occur until hand 52 in heads-up showdown between Lisa Hamilton (7-7) and Darryll Fish (3-3). The board ran out K-9-5-5-3, sending Fish to the rail for $46k. Play loosened slightly at this point, with Arti Rodriguez pushing all-in just a few hands later holding 9-7. Rodriguez’s opponent was Hamilton as well, who held K-4 offsuit. Hamilton scored a pair of 4s on the turn, giving her the upper hand and leaving Rodriguez with $55k in fifth place.
Action slowed down again until the 119th hand, when Coelho pushed his entire 1.85 million chip stack in against Ruberto. Following a J-6-6-3-J board, Coelho turned over 4-4 only to be crushed by the pocket aces of Ruberto. Coelho received $75k for his excellent run.
Soon after, Ruberto turned his crosshairs on Hamilton herself, sending out the final female player with A-K offsuit over A-3 suited. Hamilton cashed for $112k as a result.
Heads-up play was fast and furious, with Ruberto holding a nearly 5:1 chip lead over Sam Soverel. Soverel was hoping for a straight with K-7 on a Q-J-10 board, but that draw never finished and he hit the rail for $188k.
While not on par with the signing of 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Pius Heinz, the contingent from Germany has just grown by one at PokerStars, as the site announced they have signed Bjorn ‘Bjoerni89′ Schneider to their Team Online roster.
With Heinz’s victory at the WSOP, I would expect PokerStars, and the rest of the online poker world, to continue signing the country’s top talent, with the expectation of a poker boom in the country.
Schneider is a heads-up Sit & Go specialist, who regularly plays the $5k versions of these tournaments, who is considered one of the highest volume players in all of online poker –in fact the PokerStars blog is reporting that Schneider is on the verge of surpassing Kevin “WizardofAhhs” Thurman’s record for VIP Points in a year (the current record is 3,055,385 and Schneider currently has around 2,700,000).
Schneider’s rise in the poker world is made all the more impressive by the fact that he has only been playing poker for two years, getting his start in full-ring $5 Sit & Go’s!
The 22 year-old phenom from Gottingen, Germany joins Sebastian Ruthenberg, Sandra Naujoks, Pius Heinz, and Boris Becker as Germans on the PokerStars roster (although German gaming laws prevent PokerStars from marketing these players).
For more information on the signing of Bjorn Schneider to Team PokerStars Online you can visit the PokerStars blog.
The second starting day of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event went down on Thursday. When the chips were bagged at the conclusion of play, Sha Jun of China led the 306-runner field with 169k chips.
A number of noted professional poker players took the felt on Day 1b, such as poker legend Johnny Chan as well as a major portion of the Team PokerStars Pro roster including Randy Lew, Maxim Lykov, Vivian Im, Bryan Huang, Celina Lin and Nacho Barbero. Lykov and Lin were eliminated, but the rest will be returning with strong stacks on Day 2.
Huang built his chip stack steadily as the day went on, including one hand with a 6-10-10 flop, a 9 on the turn and a 4 on the river. Huang held A-10 suited, enough to get his opponent to muck his cards.
A total of 575 players registered for APPT Macau, more than any iteration of the tournament in history. The last time the field was nearly that big in 2008, when a 538 runners engaged in the event before Eddy Sabat was crowned winner.
Just 304 of those players earned their right to return on Day 2, all hoping for the biggest possible piece of the HKD $15,552,600 prize pool. The winner will receive over $3.77 million Hong Kong Dollars, which translates to nearly $500,000 USD.
Huang will need to face a number of talented high stakes professionals if he hopes to maintain his chip lead. In addition to the aforementioned stars from Team PokerStars Pro, the Day 2 field will include Terrence Chan, Phil Willcocks, Jeff Rossiter and Victorino Torres, the Asia Pacific Poker Tour champion from 2010.
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