Considering that Texas poker players helped build the third-largest friggin\’ casino in the world (literally under a tent in Thackerville, OK) we can take some pleasure in knowing a bunch of Texans kicked butt in The River tourney this weekend and will be sending back home some riches made in El Norte.
WinStar reportedly threw in a $580,000 overlay to make their $3 million guarantee. Not sure about the buy-in details — I think they upped it to $2k? — nor overall results. The best \”coverage\” has come via 2+2 here, mixed in with some Facebook, Twitter, and direct txt msg buzz. (Thanks KevMath and Harris, as always, for the info!)
1,210 players overall.
The winner: Bobby Hempkins, aka \”Shooter\” in the Dallas poker boom days. (And now your source for residential real estate in the North Texas area.) $710k win. Nice!
5th place finisher Brian @ZBTHorton provided regular updates from the final table, such as:
8 left, these people suck (4pm)
Apparently tax issues may or may not have complicated chop discussions — though sounds to me that the Chickasaw nation is under similar corporate-legal restrictions as the WSOP.
7th place reportedly went to a guy named Lance. Paid $95k. Sounds like a nice prize distribution (at the final table, at least). Not too flat, not too steep.
Blind structure was supposedly relatively fast, however.
Pros who made the trek for this event included: Clonie Gowen, TJ Cloutier, Michael Mizrachi, Eric Mizrachi, Kido Pham, Terrence Chan, Michael Binger, Men the Master, Allen Kessler, and Dmitri Nobles. The real @EskimoClark was also supposedly milling around.
