Who says tournament poker is dying/hurting? It\’s hard to go anywhere on the planet these days without finding a major soccer poker tournament. Lots of kids with disposable bankrolls, it seems … and lots of older folks trying to grab it.
At the EPT Deauville, which just wrapped up, all eyes were on Elky and Peter Eastgate to take down the biggest tournament ever in France. But out of 768 runners, they went out in 9th and 8th, respectively, with 21-year-old Brit Jake Cody winning the €847,000 top prize and presumably earning himself a spot on the PokerStars Kids Team.
Elky, meanwhile went pimptastic/not-gay in his homeland, sponsoring Team ElkyLady.
The LAPC is just getting into the thick of its WSOP-duration run. Of all these events going on worldwide, this one is still probably the biggest.
Across the continent, in Atlantic City. the World Poker Open at the Borgata is rolling along, with their $3,500 main event starting Sunday. They\’re still drawing fields in the multi-hundreds, making Borgata the East Coast place to be.
But let\’s not forget Mississippi — which used to be the preferred place for poker players to kick off the new year. They only got 208 entries into the $10k WPT main event at Beau Rivage. The final table for the Southern Poker Championship is set:
Name Chips
Hoyt Corkins 2,069,000
Tyler Smith 1,169,000
Jerry Vanstrydonck 1,044,000
Jonathan Kantor 894,000
Jared Jaffee 762,000
James Reed 377,000
Halfway around the world, the Aussie Millions is into Day 2 of their main event. After a festive Australia Day celebration, things got underway for the big-daddy of this Southern Hemisphere main event.
Some other cool tourneys at the Crown Casino still going … It\’s very 2 Months $2 Milliony In the Australian heads-up championship, they\’re duking it out to see which four will advance to the money matches against Andrew Lichtenberger, Barry Woods, Vanessa Selbst, and Martin Gudvangen.
And action is just getting underway for the Team Event. Here\’s how they play team poker down under:
How Does Team Poker Work
The game is No Limit Hold\’em. Teams of two, only one member from each team is on the felt at a time.The partner\’s rotate whose turn it is to play the team\’s stack each level. The first players in the game get half of the team\’s start bank, if they bust in the first level the team mate comes in immediately and plays with the other half of the team\’s starting bank.
That person will play the remainder of the first level, and the second, before the original partner resumes play in the third level.
From the second level onwards team will have their full stacks in play, and once it\’s gone the team is eliminated.
And our new-good friends at the Heartland Poker Tour are in Quapah, Oklahoma — at the Downstream Casino in the far northeast end of the state, running qualifiers for their next televised main event, which gets underway this weekend. This one is good clean All-American fun for the kids, too, as you only need to be 18 to play.
The Venetian Deep Stacks is also getting ready to start — with Event #1 kicking off Friday, so it\’s not like nothing\’s going on here in Las Vegas these days. .
