On July 3, Wednesday, the 2019 WSOP Main Event kicked off smoothly with over 1,300 players duking it out on Day 1a. This breaks the record from last year's Day 1a of 925 participants.
WSOP bracelet winner Bryan Campanello was the Day 1a chip leader with 417,500 in his bag, subsequently followed by Raymond Travis Rice (335,000), Timothy Su (297,300), Quentin Roussey (266,400), and Takehiro Kato (259,200).
Celebrity charity poker night featuring Joe Hachem, Lebanese Australian professional poker player famous for winning the main event of the 2005 WSOP, was disrupted by a case of their limousine being stolen in the port city of Geelong, Australia.
2,571 players sat down at the tables at the Rio All-Suit Hotel and Casino for Day 2C of the 2014 WSOP Main Event on Tuesda. Once concluded after 10 hours of poker action, the legendary Phil Ivey was on top of the hill with a great stack of 505,000 chips which puts him on top of all fields! Some 1,400 players survived to Day 3C!
The C-field had a lot of famous poker icons when it started. Some of which were eliminated during Day 2 including Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, JC Tran, Gerard Pique, Andreas Hoivold, Dutch Boyd, Joe Hachem, Matt Salsberg and Daniel Colman. However, Daniel Negreanu made it and, although his stack is very shy (39,800), is ready for Day 3C!
The third day of Event #55: The Poker Players Championship ($50,000 buy-in) is in the books. Don Nguyen (picture), from USA, will lead the remaining 26 players to Day 4 of the tournament. He will be joined by big names such as Jonathan Duhamel, David Benyamine, Joe Hachem, John Juanda, Erick Lindgren and Huck Seed.
When the remaining field of 26 has been narrowed down to 16 during Day 4, then all players will be guaranteed a minimum payday of $111,893 - with the chance of laying hands on the first prize of $1,774,089 and the coveted gold bracelet!
We will be back with another brief update tomorrow!
Today it's time for the fourth day of the 2013 WPT LA Poker Classic Main Event and 63 of 517 players will return to battle - with Jeremy Ausmus out in front with 1,014,000 chips! Ausmus is best known for his 5th place finish in the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event for an increadible $2,155,313.
Now he has the chance to boost his bankroll with another $1,004,090. However, there is still a long way to go and there are many great players left in the tournament that he will have to overcome - just to mention a few: Noah Schwartz, Elliot Smith, Joe Hachem, Dan Shak, Ana Marquez and Jesse Sylvia.
The third starting day of the 2013 Aussie Millions Main Event was played yesterday. Day 1a and 1b attracted 157 and 196 players, respectively, Day 1c saw the largest field (269 entries) and some of the biggest stars in poker.
Patrik Antonius was one of the poker stars who did really well. The Finnish poker pro entered the tournament during Level 4 and doubled up within just a few minutes, he then continued playing great throughout the day. In fact, he was the chip leader with 204,800 chips when the tournament director called it a day. Besides Antonius, notables such as Phil Ivey (65,000), Sam Trickett (116,000) and Joe Hachem (32,500) advanced to Day 2.
The overall chip leader heading into Day 2 is Brian Payne with stack of 299,900 chips. Phillip Willcocks is in second place with 208,400, and Patrik Antonius is ranked 3rd with 204,800.
Some of the biggest stars in the poker world are in Macau at the moment. The reason for this is that the Macau High Stakes Challenge, a $258,000 buy-in tournament with an optional rebuy, is starting today, with the winner potentially recieving about $5 million dollars.
The tournament will be played at StarWorld Hotel and Casino's Poker King Club and according to Sam Trickett, 80 players had registered for the tournament yesterday, including Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Joe Hachem. Trickett will also take part in the tournament. It might be a very expensive week for him if he doesn't get into the money since he just purchased a Ferrari 458 Spider with a price of approximately $257,000.
The 2012 WSOP has finally reached the main event. The 10 day event kicked off on Saturday the 7th of July with the first of three starting days and attracted 1,066 players, which according to WSOP.com "was a 19% increase from last year’s opening session". The main event has a buy-in of $10,000 and after the first day's session only 657 players remained. Among the known players that were kicked out during the first day of event 1A were the 12-time gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, the 1993 champion Jim Bechtel and Joe Hachem who got his only bracelet after winning the 2005 main event.
The chipleader after the first day is William John who managed to get a good start; 100,000 chips a head of the second placement which is held by Gerardo Lubas who cashed $8,920 from this year's event #46. The top ten standings from Day 1A is:
1. William John - 266,700 2. Gerardo Lubas - 165,825 3. Daniel Strelitz - 164,125 4. Dane Lomas - 157,600 5. Cary Katz - 154,850 6. Benjamin Pollak - 144,200 7. Chance Kornuth - 141,775 8. Jonathan Cuevas - 141,675 9. Jared Okun - 141,350 10. Eric Kurtzman - 136,900
The ex-world champion Joe Hachem, 45, has after 6 years with Team PokerStars Pro been without a contract since the end of 2011. A few days ago it became official that he signed for AsianLogic Group that owns for example Asian Poker Tour and several poker sites.
Hachem will become the ambassador for the APT and will also work as expert in strategic questions in order to develop poker in Australia and the Asia Pacific Region.
The 7th edition of Aussie Millions' $100,000 Challenge event is now over. The tournament saw a field of 22 brave players who were willing to put $100k from their own bankroll at risk. The field included notable pros such as Tom "durrr" Dwan, Tony G, Jason Mercier, Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Erik Seidel, Joe Hachem, and Daniel Negreanu.
After two days of play, 2 of these players had secured a piece of the prize pool, Tony G (4th - $242k) and Joe Hachem (3rd - $330,000). The final battle was between Dan "King Dan" Smith and Mikhail Smirnov. "King Dan", a well-known high stakes grinder online, ended up winning the tournament and received a first prize of $1,012,000. The second place finish gave Smirnov $616,000.
A 417-player field was narrowed down to 8 after 4 days of poker at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California. These 8 players played the final table last night and battled for some serious cash! After many hours of poker, Joe Hachem and Victor Ramadin were the last two men standing.
Day 4 of The Big Event Main event ended up being the shortest day so far. 22 players became 8 in just about 5 hours of play and the final table is now set! Victor Ramadin, who has been the chip leader for the past 2 days, is no longer in the lead. The new chip leader is Jeremy Ausmus (picture) and he will bring just about 4 million chips to the final table.
The final table of The Big Event Main Event is not far away now as there are only 22 players left. Unfortunately Daniel Negreanu didn't last all the way and he finished in 37th place ($9,000). However, there is still a big name left in the tournament. Joe Hachem, the 2005 WSOP Main Event Champ, was playing very good during Day 3 and he managed to accumulate a stack of 610,000 chips (8th place).
The American Victor Ramadin is still in the lead. He continued playing good throughout Day 3 and now he has 1,6 million chips. But there are another 3 players with over 1 million chips, so there is no time for him to sit back and relax yet. We will return with an update as soon as Day 4 of the Main Event has come to an end.
After some live rock music, some confetti and Joe Hachem saying the classic words "shuffle up and deal", the 2011 Aussie Millions Main Event kicked off yesterday at the Crown Poker Room in Melbourne, Australia. The Day 1a field consisted of 209 players and many of them were big names in poker. After 5 levels of poker, 209 players had become 117 and the tournament crew called it a day. In the lead was Erick Lindgren with 186k, on third place Patrik Antonius with 176,500, and close behind him Carter Phillps with 162,500 chips.
Day 1b is being played at the moment. In the top of the field are notables such as Jeffrey Lisandro in 6th place with 65k and Gavin Griffin in 8th place with 63k. We will return with an update as soon as Day 1b comes to and end.
When World Poker Tour's Legends of Poker tournament was about to be settled the other day one got to watch a very anonymous final table. Some big names made it to the money (Joe Hachem, Joe Sebok etc) but not even close to the final table. Last notable to leave the tournament was Jonathan Little - 12th place. Anyhow, it ended up being Andy Franberger from New York who took down the final table after many hours of play. For the win he received nothing less than $750,000 and a free entry to the WPT Final at Bellagio next year. I can only imagine how much this win must mean to him since his biggest cash before this one was only $2000. It will be interesting to see if he will play as well in the WPT Final next year.
1. Andy Frankenberger, $750 000 2. Kyle Wilson, $370 000 3. Tom Lee, $174 772 4. Tom Braband, $109 000 5. Jared Jaffee, $86 000 6. Franco Brunetti, $63 000 7. Steve Reitzfeld, $45 000 8. Wade Woelfel, $35 000 9. John Smith, $29 000 10. Hoan Ly, $24 000
Lots of players (many familiar faces) took part in EPT Main Event Day 1b. Unfortunately many notables went off the trail during the day. Just to mention a few, Eric Lindgren, Daniel Negreanu, Tony G, ElkY, Boris Becker, Pieter de Korver (last year's champ), Jason Mercier.
Of course a few notables made it to Day 2 as well. Joe Cada, Isabelle Mercier, Marcel Luske and Joe Hachem and a few more. But still - would have been nice if more notables made it through Day 1b.
Around 400 player will be returning to play Day 2 of the tournament today. Chip leader is Thiago Decano (264,2000) followed by Paul Berende (195,500) and Tommaso Briotti (175,400). A bit further down in the felt we can find a few big names. For example the PokerStars Pros Joe Cada (123,600) and Alex Gomes (122,800).
Joe Hachem's (2005 WSOP Main Event winner) little brother Tony Hachem took home PokerStars ANZPT (Australia New Zealand Poker Tour) in Perth the other day after surviving a field of 222 players. For the win Tony received the first place prize of $132,750. Tony Hachem is the most successful player on the ANZPT tour since it started last year. Tony's great success in ANZPT has given him a lot of attention from media and also helped him a bit further out from the shadow of his older brother Joe Hachem.
Final table results: 1: Tony Hachem, $132 750 2: Aleks Lackovic, $84 250 3: Vesko Zmukic, $47 500 4: Dale Marsland, $38 300 5: Tu Le, $32 000 6: Jimmy Wong, $26 800 7: Zaffer Soemya, $21 700 8: Eoin Kennedy, $16 600 9: Wade Beavis, $12 750
The Main Event of Aussie Millions became a huge success this year as not less than 1143 players took part and created the largest Australian championship poker tournament field in history. After Day 1 a b c, Day 2 & 3 had been played, Matthew Ephraums and Brandan Edmonds were the 2 remaining players who were going to fight for the first prize of $200,025. At this point, both of them had equal stacks and plenty of chips to play with. In other words, it seemed like it would take all night before a winner could be crowned. Edmonds took the lead almost straight away thanks to his aggressive style of playing poker. But it didn't take long before Ephraums striked back and took half of Edmonds stack. All thanks to this great read.
Ephraums raise 400,000 on a 2[h]Q[c]10[h] flop. Edmonds calls.
Turn is 4[h] and Ephraums bet 600,000 and Edmonds called again.
Day 1a of Aussie Millions in Melbourne, Australia is being played at the moment. 327 players started today - 120 have survived so far. In the lead is Chris Chronis with 155,000 chips, closely followed by Xen Xenofontos (125,000). Chris has had a great run so far in the tournament and its a well deserved lead.
Tony Hachem (Joe Hachem's brother) & Richard Ashby (Full Tilt pro with great live tournament results since 2001) are 2 of the most notable players that still are in the tournament. Let's hope that both of them make it to Day 2 of the tournament, because it's always more interesting to follow a tournament when one recognizes some of the players.
A new TV show called "The Poker Star" was introduced by PokerStars a while ago. The show will be quite similar to the very popular "POP IDOL" where talented and not so talented musicians get to perform in front of a jury with the chance of winning a contract with a big record label. However, PokerStars are not interested in Musicians, but instead in talented poker players. The winner of "The Poker Star" will get $100,000 in prize money and also a sponsorship contract with PokerStars which includes free buy-ins to a load of WPT events.
Around 18,000 people have applied to be in PokerStars new TV show. Among them you will find everything from old and experienced players to beginners with lots of self-confidence. The most of the people that get to be in the show will be handpicked by no one else than Joe Hachem (2005 WSOP Champ). Joe Hachem, will also be the one who trains the winner of the TV-show.
The show has premier next Saturday in Australian television.
The third season of APPT Macua attracted 429 players who created a total prize pool of HKD $16,130,400 (2,081,092 US Dollars). All three starting days have now been played. First day saw a starting field of 119 players and 60 of them made it to Day2. Day 1b attracted 125 players, 55 of them made it through to Day 2. Day 1c saw the biggest starting field of all 3 starting days. Not less than 185 players took part this day. Day 1c also included the most notable names.
PokerStars Team Australia Pros Joe Hachem (Winner 2005 WSOP main event), Tony Hachem (Runner-up 2007 NZ Poker Championships) and Lee Nelson (2006 Aussie Millions Champion), Bertrand (ElkY) Grospellier (Winner 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure) from PokerStars Team Pro: France, PokerStars Team Asia Pros Celina Lin (Winner Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon July 2009) and Bryan Huang (Third 2008 APPT Macau Main Event) all of them move forward from Day 1c to Day 2.
Out of 429 players, 196 players made it through to Day 2 of APPT Macua. The ones that will bring the most chips with them to Day 2 all come from Day 1b - Kristoffer Myhre from Norway (183,400), Peter Nielsen from Denmark (141,500), and PokerStars online qualifier Roel Pijepers from Netherlands (125,500).
Day 1b of APPT Macau attracted a starting field of 125 players. Of these 125 players, 55 made it through to 2 Day of the tournament. 22 of these are PokerStars online qualifiers and 5 PokerStars Macau satellite winners.
The ones that will bring the most chips with them to Day 2 from Day 1b are Kristoffer Myhre from Norway (183,400), Peter Nielsen from Denmark (141,500), and PokerStars online qualifier Roel Pijepers from Netherlands (125,500).
Day 1c of the tournament will include a lot of familiar names. Joe Hachem (WSOP 2005 main event winner), Tony Hachem (Runner-up 2007 NZ Poker Championships), Bertrand "Elky" Gospellier (Winner of 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and much more), Lee Nelson (2006 Aussie Millions Champion) any many more. Day 1c will for sure be the most interesting and action filled day so far of the tournament!
Jeff Lisandro, the most successful poker player in this WSOP (3 bracelets won) keeps on impressing. Now he's doing very well in the Main Event as well as he has made it from Day 1 to Day 2. Now the question is, can he make it all the way to the money, or maybe he can even take down the whole tournament?
Now only 138 players are left in the €10,600 buy-in EPT Grand Final tournament in Monte Carlo. Some notable players that still are in the tournament, Joe Hachem, Ilari Sahamies, Phil Laak, Mikael Norinder, Annette Obrestad and Marc Naalden.
The last few years more and more girls have realized what an amazing and enjoyable game poker really is. A few of them has been really successful and turned into pros. One of them is Annette Obrestad from Norway who has already won millions of dollars even though she is just 20 years old. Now she's on the second place in Aussie Millions with 454,800 chips. And on the first place we find another girl, Annica Ivert from Sweden who has dominated Day 2 and now has 555,900 chips.
Day 1c brought the biggest starting field so far in the tournament with almost 50% more than both day 1a and day 1b together. Day 1c included the best and most well known players as well. To mention a few of them, Gus Hansen, Phil Laak, Joe Hachem, John Juanda, Scotty Nguyen and JC Tran.
Celebrity charity poker night featuring Joe Hachem, Lebanese Australian professional poker player famous for winning the main event of the 2005 WSOP, was disrupted by a case of their limousine being stolen in the port city of Geelong, Australia.
2,571 players sat down at the tables at the Rio All-Suit Hotel and Casino for Day 2C of the 2014 WSOP Main Event on Tuesda. Once concluded after 10 hours of poker action, the legendary Phil Ivey was on top of the hill with a great stack of 505,000 chips which puts him on top of all fields! Some 1,400 players survived to Day 3C!
The third starting day of the 2013 Aussie Millions Main Event was played yesterday. Day 1a and 1b attracted 157 and 196 players, respectively, Day 1c saw the largest field (269 entries) and some of the biggest stars in poker.
The 2012 WSOP has finally reached the main event. The 10 day event kicked off on Saturday the 7th of July with the first of three starting days and attracted 1,066 players, which according to WSOP.com "was a 19% increase from last year’s opening session". The main event has a buy-in of $10,000 and after the first day's session only 657 players remained. Among the known players that were kicked out during the first day of event 1A were the 12-time gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, the 1993 champion Jim Bechtel and Joe Hachem who got his only bracelet after winning the 2005 main event.
