The 2018 edition of the WPT500 Los Angeles is now in the books. The tournament drew 2,509 entries who challenged their luck and tested their skills against each other at one of California’s hottest poker destinations – The Bicycle Casino. In the end, it was Michael Copeland who posed for a celebratory picture and then pocketed the first-place prize of $181,950 for outlasting his many opponents.
The final day of the tournament was played on Monday at the host casino. Nine players returned to play the final table and determine the champion. And Copeland led them into that final stage of the game with a massive chip lead.
It was a relatively short day at The Bike. The final table took less than four hours for the start-of-the-day field of nine to be whittled down to the champion. The first elimination occurred half an hour into action when Alexander Beleson’s [Ac][Qs] ran into Jorge Pineda’s pocket aces. An ace on the flopped pretty much sealed it for Pineda, while Beleson hit the rail for $17,790.
Players walked out one after another until there were just two players left at the table. More about the heads-up duel shortly. It is first important to note that Copeland entered the final day of the WPT500 as the chip leader with a massive advantage over the rest in contention with his stack of 19 million. And he never really lost momentum throughout the day.
The eventual champion was the first and only one to pass the 30 million chip mark yesterday. That happened during three-handed play. At that point, he was in possession of half of all chips in play.
Heads-Up
Copeland faced Pineda heads-up. The eventual winner had nearly three times more chips than his final opponent at the time cards were thrown in the air for the two-handed match. And it was not a long battle. It actually took around ten minutes for Copeland to finish off his last opponent.
On what turned out to be the final hand of the tournament, Pineda shoved pre-flop for 10.125 million and Copeland called. The eventual winner flipped over [Ac][Jc] to Pineda’s [10c][9h]. The board ran out [Ad][10s][8c][8s][4s] to bring the tournament to an end. Pineda hit the rail in second place, good for a cash prize of $120,610.
The WPT500 Los Angeles was the second event of the WPT500 series to take place this year, which means that it closed the popular WPT brand’s fifth season. The event featured a record number of starting flights – 16 overall. As mentioned earlier, it attracted a little over 2,509 entries who paid a buy-in fee of $570 to generate a prize pool of $1,254,500. Each of the nine players who played the final table was guaranteed a minimum cash of $17,790. And the winner scooped a first-place prize of $181,950, the WPT500 champion’s trophy and another trophy from the host casino.
The WPT500 Los Angeles in entering its closing stage after nine days of quality poker action at The Bicycle Casino in the Los Angeles area. The $570 buy-in tournament drew a field of 2,509 warriors, all eyeing the first-place prize and the accolades that accompany a champion. However, there are just nine of them left in contention and it is a matter of hours before it becomes clear who will be the one to claim the title.
The massive field of the event was generated through sixteen starting flights, played over eight days. This was the largest WPT500 tournament in terms of flights featured. The event offered a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million, but the guarantee was eventually crushed to reach $1,254,500. Each of the nine remaining contenders is guaranteed a minimum payout of $17,790. And the winner will take home a nice cash prize of $181,950 and the tournament trophy.
The nine hopefuls are set to resume action at the Live At The Bike studio located inside the host casino. Nine-handed play will commence at 1 pm local time and the remaining contenders will play down to a winner. It is also important to note that action will resume from Level 33 with blinds at 100,000-200,000.
Michael Copeland Leads the Pack of Nine
Day 2 of the event was played Sunday at The Bike. Play commenced with 124 players and lasted until WPT regular Minh Nguyen was eliminated in 10th place for $17,790 in prize money. The player hit the rail after failing to hold up against Michael Copeland. As for Copeland, the chips he collected from Nguyen helped him cement his lead.
The player bagged and tagged a massive stack at the end of the day and will thus lead the nine finalists into the final Day 3 with 19 million in chips. Copeland secured a big chip advantage over everyone else left in contention. The player was the only one of all nine to have passed the ten million mark. It is also important to note that Copeland’s stack is good for 95 big blinds.
Jorge Pineda collected the second largest stack last night worth 7.2 million in chips or 36 big blinds. Erik Nason with 5.375 million/27 big blinds rounded out the chip counts podium at the end of Day 2 play.
Aaron Messmer with 4.725 million (24 big blinds), Jose Torres with 3.25 million (16 big blinds), Luke Nguyen with 2.755 million (14 big blinds), Travis Tachibana with 2.5 million (13 big blinds), Alexander Beleson with 2.25 million (11 big blinds), and Sanjay Mayekar with 1.875 million (9 big blinds) were the other players to make it through Day 2 of the tournament and secure a coveted seat into the nine-handed finale. As mentioned above, each and everyone of them has locked a minimum payout of $17,790, but the first-place prize will be what all of them will be vying for.
A few years ago I wrote an article brimming with excitement when the first U.S.-based, regulated online poker sites opened their doors in Nevada.
Well, as I said, that was a few years ago, and to be quite honest the excitement has waned a bit. I knew the process would take its time, but frankly I expected more states coming online in the intervening years. Instead we ended up with New Jersey opening as the largest online poker market and then a lot of hurry up and wait.
As someone who has been consistently terrible over the better part of two decades at predicting where poker is likely to go, I figured I’d take another shot at it. I mean if you can’t double down on your losses, what else do you have in this world?
Okay. In fairness to me, I haven’t been totally terrible. I fairly accurately predicted the arc that worldwide, unregulated online poker would take once it became clear in 2003 or so that it was going to blow up and become a massive deal. I predicted that in an attempt to cash in in the short term, sites would loosen restrictions designed to protect the game ecology. I predicted that good players would become better and better at removing money from the ecosystem. That the winners would get more and more centralized, so instead of it being relatively easy to pick up the game, read a few books, and win five or six figures a year in the early part of the last decade, it would become very difficult for marginal winners. But those at the top of the food chain would still eat plenty.
That these developments would burn out the rec players, and the ecology would get increasingly tough and competitive. This would cause revenues to suffer eventually at the sites.
And that increasing attention from regulators and law enforcement in various countries would speed this process while also creating endless headaches for folks who just want to sit in their pajamas and play some cards.
(For what it’s worth, having seen this play out made it very easy for me to predict the same arc for daily fantasy sports—though that game’s arc was much shorter than poker’s.)
So that brings me to 2018. We seem to be on the cusp of some major states coming online for poker soon. If those states come online and sign compacts with existing states, we’ll have an honest-to-goodness pool of players to play some regulated online poker in this country.
We’re not going to see the boom and bust of the last decade, mostly because I don’t see any catalyst for the boom. But we will have a large base of interested, regular poker players who want to play online poker, and that’s plenty.
But an industry that didn’t learn from past mistakes will burn out online poker in the USA just like it burned out globally. The focus should be, as much as possible, on long-term health of the game. Here are my thoughts.
Discourage Multi-tabling Specialists
One of the reasons online poker burned out is because players specialized and multi-tabled. The strategy for heads-up turbo sit-n-gos is very different from the strategy for nine-handed cash game no-limit hold’em is very different from the strategy for heads up limit Omaha eight-or-better.
So what (naturally) happened is that players specialized in one game and then grinded it as much as possible. These specialists eventually burn games out. What happens is the specialists proliferate and multi-table, taking multiple seats at every game in the lobby. And the rec player experience becomes banging heads with people who do nothing all day but grind this specific game type.
This is a degenerate game ecology. Online sites should encourage generalization, not specialization, from its grinders.
Player Loyalty Programs
To some extent, poker sites are constrained by the rules of the game. No-limit hold’em as a cash game is a highly skilled, deep game. Aside from capping the buy-in at very low levels (which basically no one wants), there’s little you can do to level the playing field between the best grinders and the casual amateurs.
The result of laisse faire policies at online poker sites is that grinders can maximize their win (as a class of players), and amateurs get burned out fast. This is bad not just for amateurs who can’t just play and enjoy the game, but it’s also bad for operators because they are losing more player deposits to winners than necessary to keep the ecology healthy.
The solution lies in player loyalty programs. No, you can’t change the rules of no-limit hold’em. But what you can do is rake the games fairly heavily and then return a substantial portion of that raked money back to the players in the form of loyalty programs.
The loyalty program’s rules aren’t constrained like the actual game’s rules. They are limited only by gaming regulations and by the imagination. The program can be set up to reward ecology-healthy activity and discourage ecology-degenerate activity.
Say you want to discourage specialization and encourage generalization. You can award bonus points for playing different games, for instance. You get no bonus points for grinding more heads-up turbo sit-n-gos, but you get a lot of bonus points if you hop in a limit Omaha 8-or-better game or a 7-game mix.
Theoretically, subject to gaming regulation requirements, these bonuses could be targeted. So you could reward Player A for playing one game and Player B for playing a different game.
You could reward casual players at a higher per-hand rate than grinders by offering the highest per-hand bonuses to the first 1000 hands played in a given period.
The goal is not to punish grinders. Quite the opposite—it’s designed to reward grinders who generalize and master many different games. It’s designed to reward grinders who put some thought and effort into helping maintain the ecology that supports them, rather than specializing narrowly and exploiting the community maximally.
Final Thoughts
I think the future of USA online poker is bright. Not white-hot bright like it was 15 years ago, but bright nonetheless. There’s a large base of interested players. There’s also two decades of successes and failures to learn from. As long as sites do learn from the failures, creating a healthy poker ecosystem built to last should be no problem.
The main concern should be the recreational player experience. If a rec player can log in and easily play a few hundred hands of his or her preferred game at a table that’s not saturated with specialized, multi-tabling grinders, that’s 80 percent of it right there. Site rules and player loyalty programs should be built around cultivating that rec player experience. A few clever programs can influence much of grinder behavior to be ecosystem-positive rather than ecosystem-destroying.
If the sites focus this way as states open up to online poker, I think we’ll have great games in this country for years to come. ♠
America’s northern neighbor is fighting back against taxes on some of its most crucial exports with retaliatory tactics of its own, and playing cards are getting caught in the crossfire.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration slapped import taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum — two of Canada’s must crucial exports. In response, Canadian officials implemented tariffs on US exports, including a 10 percent tax on all playing cards coming into Canada from south of the border.
That’s having an effect on card players north of the border and card manufacturers in the US.
Prices Head North
The tariff affects both regular playing cards used in poker games, as well as those used in a game that’s popular with many poker players – Magic: The Gathering.
However, while Canada can turn to manufacturers at home or elsewhere abroad for standard playing cards, Magic cards are made almost exclusively in the US.
That’s affecting Magic players and the local hobby shops which sell the cards. The extra cost is being downloaded on to the consumer, resulting in lower sales for Canadian retailers. Sets of Magic cards can go for hundreds of dollars, so the extra cost adds up quickly.
“Our prices may be 10 percent higher, but we’re not making 10 percent more,” David Teller, who owns the Wizard’s Tower card shop in Ottawa, told CBC News. “And then if our sales drop, obviously that’s a concern.”
Canada is the number one purchaser of US-made cards in the world, importing about $4.6 million worth of cards annually.
If sales slip, US manufacturers will be hurt. Why are they targeting playing cards? While officials haven’t laid out specifics, many trade experts believe Canada is targeting industries that affect the Republican leadership.
Magic cards are manufactured by the US Playing Card Company, which is located in Kentucky. That just happens to be home to Senate Majority Leader and Trump supporter, Mitch McConnell.
Magic of Poker
Some of poker’s biggest names cut their teeth playing Magic, a Dungeons and Dragons-style strategy game, before moving on to poker. Scott Seiver, Bryn Kenney, Isaac Haxton, and even 2018 high stakes crusher Justin Bonomo were competitive Magic players before moving on to poker.
So far, poker cards haven’t been significantly affected by the tariffs, but that could change as the trade dispute stretches on. The provincial body which oversees all of the casinos in Quebec has already put out the call for a new contract on playing cards.
“The contract has not yet been awarded. The impact of tariffs could depend on the firm selected, as the origin of the cards vary from supplier to suppliers,” Renaud Dugas of Loto-Quebec told CBC News.
There has been progress on the trade war in recent days, however. The Trump administration is expected to announce a breakthrough in NAFTA negotiations with Mexico this week, which could clear the way for fresh talks with Canada.
As an innovator and industry leader, I am always trying to keep the great game of poker interesting, fun, and progressive.
When I first heard about the single-payer ante concept, I was sceptical. Paul Campbell, an excellent tournament director and friend of mine, was using it in the high-roller events at ARIA Resort & Casino after the idea was started there with Cary Katz and the high-roller players. It was implemented with varying ante sizes and big blind levels that were strange to me, and I think that was what originally turned me off to the idea. That said, I wouldn’t be doing my job as an innovator and industry leader if I didn’t take the time to try it out myself.
One of the allures of the big blind ante (BBA) is its simplicity, and that’s what ultimately gave me the push to give it a try at Commerce Casino last year. The initial response in the first level of play was mixed, but 10 minutes later the players were raving about it.
I was intrigued by the response and decided with Commerce Casino Tournament Coordinator Justin Hammer to implement BBA in a few events at the L.A. Poker Classic, including in the opening $1 million guarantees, $350 buy-in event. The response from the dealers, staff members, but most importantly the players all but forced us to install it in many more events before the end of the series. We then installed it in every no-limit event in the following series in May, including a survivor tournament, a shootout event, and the satellites.
I knew at that point I was ready to use, promote, and popularize it globally and bring it to all World Poker Tour events, including WPT500, WPTDeepStacks, the WPT Main Tour, and more. I then reached out to our loyal tour partners and they were almost unanimous in their willingness to give it a shot. I then took my BBA experiences to Europe and was met with the same enthusiasm at our WPT player and partners’ summit.
This is what those that use BBA know and understand from its use:
1. Dealers, staff, and players alike have universally claimed how much easier and more efficient it is.
2. More hands are being dealt, allowing structures to remain deeper for longer portions of tournaments.
3. Dealers are not having to bother distracted players for their antes every hand.
4. There are no more mistakes and floor calls asking, “Who owes an ante?”
5. There are less chips in play, less need to make change, and fewer annoying bets of 1,675.
6. The bottom line is that BBA is faster and downright better!
Of course, any time you introduce something widespread in the poker industry there is going to be those that want to argue that the old way is better. As I said before, even I was not totally on board at first, but after seeing BBA in use and polling both recreational and pro players BBA is overwhelmingly the best decision for the game of poker.
The one complaint I’ve heard from the most from those opposed is, “It’s unfair to short stacks.” I couldn’t disagree more. In fact, I actually believe BBA is more beneficial to short stacks.
BBA already has several advantages for short stacks, including the following.
1. The antes are LESS per round during seven-, eight-, nine-, and 10-handed play and the same at six-handed play in many levels.
2. You don’t have to ante eight out of nine hands in full ring.
3. You can win more when not in the big blind than you can win with individual antes because you win the full ante even if you only have one chip.
So, I want to ask this question: Why is helping the short stacks ever the thought of any player or tournament director before the start of the tournament when everyone is equal? You should want short stacks to bust unless, of course, you are one. When short stacks bust out, other players get closer to the money, play generally becomes deeper in the money, and it helps keep the big blind average higher.
Other complaints I often hear are, “My table is one player short,” and, “I just paid my big blind on the last table when my table broke.” These problems already existed with individual antes. As long as it’s random, I have no issue with either of these.
Many of you are well aware of the debate that was blown up on social media between the great Daniel Negreanu and I. It centered on what comes first when a player is in big blind and you are short of the entire ante amount. Daniel believes it is more player-friendly and correct to have the big blind come first, whereas I believe antes should come first. The debate was definitely blown out of proportion because this issue happens very rarely, but I didn’t back down because ante first from the big blind is technically correct and “ante,” by definition, means “before.”
In my opinion, it cannot be player-friendly to one without being player-unfriendly to another in this case. If you are on the same table and already paid an ante and also have a short stack remaining in that hand, you should absolutely be entitled to win the entire ante and the amount you have in front of you times the number of players in the pot, so you cannot have it both ways.
Do you think you should be able to win all the antes for the entire round, then skip when it’s your turn to post an ante and not have to make it up either?
Daniel ran a poll that was skewed towards his opinion that the big blind should come first. In three other polls by other players and one by Seminole Hard Rock Tournament Director Tony Burns (@TDTonyB), all of which were worded more correctly, posting the ante first was favored.
To be fair, this happened so rarely in the hundreds of events it’s been used in that it does not even deserve this much attention. Furthermore, not once after explanation did a player have a problem with it.
In conclusion, if you want to use BBA and do it the way that many of the game’s top tournament directors and I believe it should be implemented, here are some things to be clear on and to have ready to explain to players.
1. There will be one single ante posted for the whole table by the player in the big blind.
2. The ante is posted first and players from any position will be eligible to win the entire ante regardless of chip stack.
3. Antes never reduce until end of tournament.
4. In regards to payouts, if two players are all in at same table and one is in the big blind, (a) the big blind gets credit for ante first, (b) the player out of the big blind gets full credit for ante, and (c) the ante is considered dead in the pot.
5. This one is extremely rare and up for debate, but it is a situation to be aware of. The player in the big blind antes first, but only has one chip and is all in by posting the ante. Action folds to the player in the small blind, who calls. The board runs out to force a chopped pot, so who wins the one-chip ante?
I look forward to bringing big blind ante to all markets globally and to the Tournament Directors Association (TDA) annual summit held next summer at ARIA in Las Vegas, the property that started the whole BBA craze in the first place. The TDA and I share a mantra of consistency and, whether or not you personally agree, you should live with the change to be consistent for the benefit of the players. I know that big blind ante is a great change to no-limit hold’em poker tournaments. The big blind ante is here to stay!
Thirteen tribes in the state of Oklahoma can now offer roulette, craps and other ball and dice games, as the approval of Class III gaming compacts between the state and the tribes was announced by Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Tara Sweeney, in a pair of notices published on Friday in the Federal Register, according to indianz.com.
Per the model gaming compact, all amendments, including the one authorizing ball and dice games, need to be signed off on by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) prior to taking effect
Sweeney, whose nomination to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior was unanimously approved by the Senate in June, is the first Alaska Native, and the first woman in two decades, to oversee the BIA. The corporate executive hails from an Inupiat village on the northern slope of Alaska and is reportedly well known in her home state for her work on Indigenous issues, ranging from economic sustainability to tribal sovereignty.
Amendment approved:
Oklahoma Governor, Mary Fallin, on April 10 this year signed H.B. 3375 that allows the state’s tribal casinos to offer traditional roulette and dice games, which were specifically prohibited since 2004. This is not, however, the style of roulette and craps you see in Vegas. It is a non-house banked version where player’s wins and losses are put in a player pool.
Originally, the bill called for the expansion of sports betting as well, but that provision was omitted via an amendment from Rep. Kevin Wallace (R-Wellston), the author of the measure.
Helping the push for the passage of the bill was a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year along with the April 2 statewide walkout by teachers demanding increased education funding that shuttered schools across the state.
Exclusivity fees:
Tribes that signed off on the extra gaming provisions are now subject to an increase in the state’s exclusivity fees and will be required to pay Oklahoma 10% of their monthly net win from each new offering.
Tribes do not pay exclusivity fees on revenue generated from Class II gaming.
According to a 2016 study (pdf) commissioned by the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Commission, since the 2006 implementation of Class III gaming compacts in Oklahoma, more than $1.123 billion in exclusivity fees have been paid to the state by tribal casinos.
An additional $22 million is expected to be generated by the exclusivity fees via the expansion in the first year, with $49 million annually in the coming years.
Tribes paid the fiscal year 2017 exclusivity fees based on more than $2.2 billion in revenue generated from Class III electronic games and nonhouse-banked card games.
According to the first notice in the Federal Register, Class III gaming compacts for the Choctaw Nation and the Fort Sill Apache Tribe were approved by Sweeney on August 6. Class III gaming compacts were reportedly approved for an additional 11 tribes on August 9, according to the second notice, as reported by indianz.com.
Included in the second notice are tribes that operate some of the state’s largest and most lucrative gaming enterprises, such as the Cherokee Nation and the Chickasaw Nation.
According to the Oklahoma Gaming Compliance Unit Annual Report Fiscal Year 2017, of the nearly $134 million in tribal gaming exclusivity fees collected in the fiscal year 2017 under state-tribal gaming compacts, the Cherokee Nation contributed $15,562,043.62 in exclusivity fees while the Chickasaw nation paid $46,826,788.00 in exclusivity fees.
The Cherokee Nation’s Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa on Monday opened ball and dice game tables to the public. It is the first tribal casino in the Tulsa market to do so.
The first stop of the RunGood Old West tour struck Tunica and brought out the second-largest field in RG Main Event history. 536 participants created a prize pool of $268,000. After Two days of poker, Dennis Thurman won the first prize of $61,640 along with the cowboy boots and custom RGPS belt buckle.
Thurman hails carries a lot of poker experience from his days playing poker on the East Coast. In the first RG Main Event, Thurman topped a tough field and RunGood’s Dan Lowery, heads-up to win the title.
At the beginning of Day 2, Thurman opened play with 51,000 yet rapidly rotated his method up right into opinion. Thurman entered the final table in the middle of the pack and stayed out of Lowery’s way while he eliminated player after player.
Heads up play began with Lowery holding a 3-1 advantage but Thurman quickly made his action. Thurman doubled up at the beginning of the heads-up play and broke up from there. Play went back and forth until Lowery had Thurman in jeopardy once again.
Lowery held 7♦7♥ against Thurman’s 5♥5♠ and Thurman flopped a set to take the lead. A few hands later, Thurman closed out the match when he flopped a king with K♥6♣ against Lowery’s A♣A♠, all the chips went in, and the K♦ turn locked up the title for Thurman.
This event marks the final thought of the RGPS Old West in Tunica. RunGood thanks to all of the Horseshoe tournament staff, ambassadors, and players for a great series. We will see you next on the RunGood Series in Kansas City from September 17-22.
The WPT500 Los Angeles kicked off Saturday at the host venue, The Bicycle Casino, with two starting flights. As many as 331 entries registered into the $570 buy-in tournament during Days 1A and 1B, but only 17 of them will progress into Day 2.
The event features a total of fourteen starting flights, running all the way through August 25, so there is still a plethora of opportunities for interested players to enter it for a chance at the title and the lion’s share of the prize pool. But without much further ado, here is how the action unfolded during the two starting flights.
Day 1A action kicked off at 11:30 am local time at the host casino. As many as 251 players entered through that first starting flight, but there were just 13 of them left at the tables of The Bicycle when organizers called it a day. The play was stopped with 24:51 remaining in Level 21.
Peter Hengsakul bagged the largest chip stack at the end of Day 1A. The player put a total of 1.151 million in his bag. Hengsakul has a massive chip lead over his fellow Day 1A survivors, with Robert Zeidman standing nearest to him in the leaderboard with 620,000. It is interesting to note that Hengsakul finished third in the previous edition of the WPT500 Los Angeles, which took place in May 2017. The player collected $100,000 for his deep run in that event.
Day 1B Action
The Day 1B (Turbo) starting flight kicked off at 5 pm at the host venue. It attracted 80 entrants, but only four of them survived to the very end of the ordeal. Peter Neff ended play as the chip leader with 714,000. This means that Hengsakul is the overnight chip leader of the first two starting flights of the tournament and will be heading the remaining 17 players into Day 2 next Sunday.
Day 1B concluded with 18:09 remaining in Level 22, blinds standing at 8,000-16,000. After all starting flights are completed and Day 2 begins, the blinds are set to be rocked back to the earliest finish of all fourteen Day 1s.
WPT500 action is set to resume at 11:30 am today at The Bicycle for Day 1C. Day 1D is scheduled to begin at 5 pm local time. Unlimited re-entries into the tournament are allowed until registration closes before the start of Level 9. Day 2 of the tournament will take place on Sunday, August 26. The remaining survivors will play down to the final 9 who will return on Monday to determine the winner.
The previous edition of the WPT500 Los Angeles was hosted by The Gardens Casino in the spring of 2017. The tournament was entered by 3,266 participants, who generated a prize pool of over $1.6 million. The top 263 finishers received a share of the money, min-cashes starting from $1,300. Poker pro-Dong Le took down the event to collect the first-place prize of $224,500.
With a huge $million up for grabs as well as being crowned the latest partypoker Millions Champion, it’s all to play for the remaining players as we head into the fifth and final day of the 2018 Sochi Millions $5,300 Main Event!
The second stop on the 2018/2019 WSOP Circuit schedule is now in full swing, with Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut currently playing host to the popular series. And a first gold ring has already been awarded to its rightful winner as part of the ongoing poker festival.
Vittorio Faricelli, a real estate broker from Brooklyn, New York, won last night his first piece of WSOP Circuit paraphernalia after a near-miss in Atlantic City earlier this year. The player took down the opening $400 No-Limit Hold’em at Foxwoods after two days of poker action.
The tournament drew a field of 113 entries who created a prize pool of $37,290. The top 12 finishers were treated to a share of the prize pool, with min-cashes starting from $779. Each of the nine final tablists was guaranteed a minimum payout of $963. As for the winner, he collected $11,187 to accompany his gold ring.
This was Faricelli’s fifth cash from the WSOP Circuit and seventh from a WSOP-branded event. Earlier this summer, the player finished in the money in the $1,111 Little One for ONE DROP for $1,593 and The Closer $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em for $4,021.
As mentioned above, the latest WSOP Circuit gold ring winner nearly claimed the piece earlier this year. Faricelli reached heads-up against Joshua Clanton in a $365 No-Limit Hold’em event at Harrah’s Atlantic City, but eventually placed second.
Event Highlights
The opening $400 No-Limit Hold’em at Foxwoods turned out to be Faricelli’s lucky one. The tournament was played over two days. The second day of action saw just three players return to battle it out for the first-place prize and the gold ring.
The eventual champion was holding the chip lead with 774,000 at the time cards were thrown in the air for Day 2 action. Lowell Kim held the second largest stack with 641,000, and James Campbell was the short stack with just under 300,000.
The event’s second day was a relatively short one. Campbell busted in third place for $4,922 and left it to Faricelli and Kim to square off for the gold ring. Faricelli was leading at the beginning of heads-up, but Kim managed to double up early into the match. However, the eventual champion rapidly gained pace to extend his advantage significantly until the final hand was dealt.
The two players got it all in with Faricelli tabling [Ac][6c] to Kim’s [10d][9d]. Faricelli’s ace-high kept him comfortable all the way through the river when he scored a straight for extra advantage. Kim was thus eliminated in second place for a payout of $6,914.
Commenting on his triumph last night, Faricelli said that his general positive attitude has helped him a lot in difficult situations on and off the poker felt. The player said that lately he has been running great not just in poker but in life as a whole. Faricelli recently wed his partner Pamela and is having his best life as a newlywed.
