A big congratulations to Noah Schwartz, the winner of World Poker Tour Alpha8 Florida! The $100,000 buy-in event attracted a small but tough field of players (Jason Mercier, Byron Kaverman, Dan Colman, Jake Schindler, Noah Schwartz and Bryn Kenney), which meant that the entire prize pool would go to the last man standing.
Some people say that 3 is the magic number. Noaha Schwartz is most probably one of those people now given that he won his first gold bracelet last Saturday at his third career WSOP final table!
Schwartz, who finished 2nd in a bracelet event this summer and 4th in Event #3 at the 2013 WSOPE, had the chip lead when the final day of Event #6: €3,250 Mixed Max Pot-Limit Omaha kicked off and made it to heads-up against Ludovic Lacay after several hours of play.
Another 5 players entered the second day of Event #3: €5,300 Mixed Max No-Limit Hold'em and brought the total field size to 140, which means that the event has a prize pool of €672,000!
Now, there are only 16 players left (all guaranteed €14,905 each) after two days of play and Noah Schwartz is the chip leader with 262,000 (109 big blinds) heading into Day 3. Nine-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Ivey also made it through to Day 3 with 90,500 chips, so he has a decent chance of winning a 10th gold bracelet!
On Sunday, the final table of the 2013 European Poker Tour Monaco Grand Final Main Event concluded with Steve O'Dwyer taking down the tournament for €1,224,000 and an exclusive Slyde watch after defeating Andrew Pantling heads-up.
About 110 players remain in the EPT Monaco Grand Final Main Event after 2 days of play. Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden pushed past the half a million mark late during Day 2 and finished the day as the chip leader with 605,200. Lodden will be joined by the likes of Calvin Andersen (472,400), Oleksii Kovalchuk (414,700), Noah Schwartz (453,400), Steve O'Dwyer (389,200) and Daniel Negreanu (340,100) to the third day of the tournament.
The remaining players are fighting for a first prize of €1,224,000! The money bubble will burst during day 3 when 80 players remain (€16,000 min cash). We will be back with a bigger update tomorrow. Stay tuned!
The second flight of EPT Monaco attracted a much greater field of players than Day 1A. In total, 423 players came to start and boosted the total number of entries to 531. There were many familiar faces at the poker tables including Viktor Blom, Patrik Antonius, Sam Trickett, Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier and Gus Hansen.
After eight levels of play, the tournament director called it a day and approximately 200 players remained. Only Mercier (48,200) from the players mentioned above survived the day. Victor Sbrissa, who won LAPT Brazil in Sao Paolo a week ago, was in the lead with 224,800 chips, which is a quite impressive results from a single day. Another two notables who made it through the day with about 200k chips were Noah Schwartz and Calvin Anderson.
On Monday, the first starting day of World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star (San Jose, California) kicked off with 270 players. The field included some of the biggest stars in the game of poker, however, only 109 made it through the day and, unfortunately, many big names hit the rail: Phil Hellmuth (picture), Daniel Negreanu, Michael Mizrachi, Scotty Nguyen, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst (to mention a few).
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.
Noah Schwartz had almost half of the 14 million chips in play when the final table of the WPT bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble Main Event kicked off last night. When the final table was 68-hands-old Schwartz and Byron Kaverman began playing heads-up with nearly even stacks. The heads-up match only lasted 12 hands and was fairly even with no big pots until the very last hand.
Noah Schwartz ($1,209,326 in WPT earnings) will bring more than 6 million chips to the final table of the WPT bestbet Jacksonville Main Event! He took the lead in the last few minutes of Day 3 when he doubled up through the previous chip leader Hans Winzeler with AK vs AQ. Schwartz enters the final table tonight with more than 43% of the chips in play. Besides Schwartz, Lee Markholt ($1,376,164 in WPT earnings) will be going for his second WPT title, so it will be a very thrilling final table to watch.
A total of 477 players signed up for World Poker Tour bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble last Friday and Saturday. Day 1A, Day 1B and Day 2 are now concluded and the player field has been narrowed down to 28 players. The average stack is 511k, Joseph Elpayaa (picture) has the lead with 924,000 chips and Noah Schwartz in ranked second with 916,000. Besides Schwartz, the two biggest names with chips left are Jonathan Aguiar (604,000) and John Racener (593,000).
The remaining players are guaranteed at least $9,158 each - with the chance of laying hands on the top prize of $402,970! We will be back with another update tomorrow morning!
The main event with a $10,500 buy-in kicked off on Sunday with loud music, dancing girls and a video where Joe Hachem welcomed and wished everyone good luck. In the video he also said - "I think it's about time an Aussie took home the title", with the glimt in the eye.