The left coast featured prominently in this week\’s tournament action, with two different series\’ winding down, while the WPT made a stop in Florida and the WSOP Circuit found it\’s way to Lake Tahoe.
NAPT Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California)
The big story heading into the Main Event of NAPT LA was how the turnout would be for the first non-televised event of the tour. In a not-too-surprising outcome, the power of PokerStars\’ satellites helped build a field of 701 for the $5K event, and from that came an impressive final nine. Once that nine was reached, the NAPT was able to circumvent the no-compete clause of its host, the Bike, and move the final table action to the Crystal Casino to shoot the action for future airing on ESPN2.
Jason Mercier lost a flip for possibly the first time in his poker career to exit in 7th place, followed soon after by Mike Binger in 6th. Ray Henson went out in 5th, and PokerStars lost its last sponsored pro with the exit of Anh Van Nguyen in 4th. The story of this final table ha to be the total domination by Joe Tehan. After winning the coin flip with Mercier to bust him, Tehan cruised to victory and pocketed $725,000 for his efforts. [PokerStars Blog]
That wasn\’t the only action going on at the Crystal Casino, as they ran a $5K bounty shootout that was also filmed by the 441 crew. The final table included the likes of Michael Mizrachi, David Williams, Eric Baldwin, Tom Marchese, Pat Pezzin, Justin Young, Mohsin Charania, Clint Coffee and Kevin MacPhee. Each earned $20,000 for winning their initial table, as well as $1,000 for each player they eliminated. When it got down to heads-up play, it was Justin Young who locked up the most bounties, thus locking up a free seat in the upcoming PCA version of this event, but he would ultimately fall short as Eric Baldwin won a marathon heads-up battle at almost 4am local time and took home $134,800. Which might make for a pretty awkward trip home, as they drove out to LA from Las Vegas together for the NAPT. [PokerStars Blog]
LA Poker Open (Los Angeles, California)
Just down the block at the Commerce, the LA Poker Open is winding down towards the end of its Main Event. In the lead-up to the big tournament, Sorel Mizzi topped a short field to win a $1,500 bounty event, while Will \”the Thrill\” Failla added an LA Poker Open final table to one he made earlier in the week at the Bike, at a final table that also featured Bryan Devonshire and Matt Affleck. Affleck continued running well deep into the Main Event of the LA Poker Open before losing a tough coin flip late and being eliminated in 13th place.
11 players remain heading into the final day of play, with Kwinsee Khoa Tran leading the way with 1,075,000. First place in this one is $178,830. [Commerce]
HPT Championship Open (Mount Pleasant, Michigan)
Even with the elimination of Tiffany Michelle on the \”TV Bubble\”, this HPT final table managed to have a few recognizable names, despite the events in LA and Florida. Bernard Lee continued an impressive month of November by making this final table, and was joined by Dean Hamrick, who won his first WSOP bracelet this year. Ahmed Haraji was victorious, taking home $176,865 for his win. Check out the work that Scarlet did all week live from this event. [Heartland Poker Tour]
WPT Regional Series: Seminole Hard Rock Fall Open Poker Tournament (Hollywood, Florida)
The World Poker Tour dipped its toe in the water for the first time in Florida with a regional event that got underway Friday. Entering Day 3, Raj Vorha holds the chip lead with 1.34 million. The two biggest notables among the 23 still in contention are Shannon Shorr (182K) and Allie Prescott (126K).
EPT Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)
The tournament is just getting underway with only a couple of levels in the books.Daniel Negreanu wrote a blog entry detailing his struggle to make it to this event and the hoops he had to jump through to do so that\’s definitely worth a read.
WSOP Circuit Event: Harvey\’s Lake Tahoe (Lake Tahoe, NV)
246 players showed up for this event, which has to be a fairly good sign considering how spread out players are around the country (and the world). After one day of play, the chip leader is Dan Black of Cloverdale, California with 329,500. [WSOP]
Elsewhere…
With just a few weeks left in the year, there\’s only a couple more chances for players to crack the Player of the Year standings. In CardPlayer, Tom Marchese holds a solid lead over Dwyte Pilgrim, Vanessa Selbst, and Sorel Mizzi, while in the BLUFF race Mizzi holds a commanding lead of Marchese, David Peters and Selbst.
Online
Soi Nguyen missed out on any additional money when he was eliminated in 9th place at the WSOP Main Event, but he certainly cashed in during the FTOPS. In his first hosting duties as a member of the FullTilt team, he managed to win his own tournament. Somehow he didn\’t use up all of his luck in making his run to the November Nine, as his event was a Super Turbo Rush Poker tournament that started players with just 300 chips, but Nguyen came through in the end and banked nearly $80,000.
The big winner of the FTOPS was \”JHoWn\”, who took down the Main Event of the series on Monday for a cool $412K.