CardsChat

Tag: Daniel Strelitz

  • CardsChat Presents Big Winners of the WSOP (July 7 – 14)

    CardsChat Presents Big Winners of the WSOP (July 7 – 14)

    As the World Series of Poker Main Event roared on, there were still 14 bracelets to be won last week. Julien Martini grabbed his third bracelet within nine months, and a bunch of other players got their first career wins. The WSOP is scheduled to come to a close with the Tournament of Champions, a three-day event that starts Monday.

    The Main Event is currently at 10 players. They return today at 2 p.m. to play down to the final four. A winner will be made on Saturday.


    Mike Allis
    (Image: WSOP)

    Mike Allis

    $1,111 One More for One Drop
    5,702 entries

    $535,610

    In order to secure his first bracelet in his 37th cash, Allis had to make it through 2013 WSOP Main Event champ Ryan Riess heads-up. And the ending was a strange one: Allis went all-in before it was his turn to act with 63 off-suite and got snap-called by 99. But the board built an open-ender which got there on the river, and Allis now has more than $800K in WSOP winnings. 


    Bradley Anderson
    (Image: WSOP)

    Bradley Anderson

    $1,500 Mixed Omaha
    771 entries

    $195,565

    The Missoula, Mont. resident came close to winning a bracelet in 2014 when he finished fifth in the Milly Maker for $355K, but was able to seal the deal in the PLO mixed-game event that featured Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better, Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better and Big O. He now has more than a half-million dollars in WSOP winnings. 


    Daniel Strelitz
    (Image: WSOP)

    Daniel Strelitz

    $1,500 Razz
    383 entries

    $115,723

    The professional player won his second bracelet and pushed his WSOP earnings over the $2 million mark. His first bracelet came in a $5K no-limit event in 2019, and he has a handful of final tables among his 60 cashes, including a third-place finish in the $2,500 Mixed Triple-Draw Lowball event. 


    Pei Li
    (Image: WSOP)

    Pei Li

    $1,500 Bounty PLO 8-handed
    1,390 entries

    $190,219

    The man from Calgary took down the bounty event for his first bracelet and only fifth WSOP cash. He has a handful of wins playing tournaments in casinos across Alberta. 


    Gregory Teboul
    (Image: WSOP)

    Gregory Teboul

    $777 Lucky 7’s No-Limit
    6,891 entries

    $777,777

    The Frenchman got his first bracelet in the seven-handed, $777,777 guaranteed first-place event and, yes, it happened in his seventh WSOP cash.


    Jinho Hong
    (Image: WSOP)

    Jinho Hong

    $1,979 Poker Hall of Fame Bounty
    865 entries

    $276,067

    Hong’s WSOP results have slowly gotten better since he started cashing in 2021, where he managed to cash in five events, but never cracked 100th place. This year he’s cashed three times, no worst than 55th, and won his first bracelet. He’s from Seoul.  


    Sandeep Pulusani
    (Image: WSOP)

    Sandeep Pulusani

    $1,500 PLO/NL
    1,234 entries

    $277,949

    It’s the second bracelet for the man from Huntsville, Ala., the first coming nine years ago. The win pushes his WSOP cashes over the $1 million mark. It was his fifth cash of the 2022 Series, and 12th since 2021.  


    Sebastien Aube
    (Image: WSOP)

    Sebastien Aube

    $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em
    1,364 entries

    $499,636

    Aube, from Quebec, has only two tournament cashes to his name. This is the second one. Yes, it’s for a bracelet worth a half-million dollars. That’s sweeter than the purest maple syrup. 


    Julien Martini
    (Image: WSOP)

    Julien Martini

    $10K Razz Championship
    125 entries

    $328,906

    Martini is running hotter than a pair of stilettos. This is the Frenchman’s third bracelet in nine months, the other two coming at WSOP Europe late last year. He won a $1,500 PLO 8OB event in 2018 and is just shy of $1 million in WSOP wins. 


    Romans Voitovs
    (Image: WSOP)

    Romans Voitovs

    $600 PLO/NL Deepstack
    2,107 entries

    $158,609

    Another player with a short tournament resume, the Latvian none-the-less won his first bracelet in his fifth WSOP cash in the low buy-in bonanza.


    Harry Lodge
    (Image: WSOP)

    Harry “timexCNT” Lodge

    $7,777 WSOP.com Lucky 7’s High Roller (NV/NJ)
    161 entries

    $396,366

    Lodge shoved his WSOP winnings over the $1 million mark by taking down the big buy-in online event. It’s the  tenth cash this Series and the 50th since 2015 for the man from Haywards Heath, UK. The final table was killer. Andrew Robl finished second, Daniel Lazrus, third, Davis Peters, fourth, and Daniel Negreanu, fifth.


    Yevgeniy Minakrin
    (Image: Sharkescope)

    Yevgeniy “Kazak132” Minakrin

    $1,000 WSOP.com No-Limit Championship (NV/NJ)
    994 entries

    $238,315

    Minakin took his shot playing most of the online events this year, and it paid off for him on Sunday when he won his first WSOP bracelet. He’s from Eagan, Minn.


    Alex Schwint
    (Image: Sharkscope)

    Alex “Schwibbs1” Schwint

    $1,000 WSOP.com No-Limit Championship (Penn.)
    122 entries

    $27,054

    In 337 games on WSOP.com in Pennsylvania, Schwint has won two rings and a bracelet, which was he won Sunday. He’s cashed a dozen times in WSOP.com bracelet and Circuit events for $74K since he started playing in Aug. 2021. And he owns a very sexy Sharkscope chart. Schwing!


    ethmonsta
    (Image: Sharkscope)

    Cade “ethmonsta” Lautenbacher

    $1,000 WSOP.com No-Limit Championship (Mich.)
    130 entries

    $28,828

    This was Lautenbacher’s best tournament cash to date, and only his second played on WSOP.com in Michigan. It’s his first bracelet.

  • Mega Millions Returns to the Bicycle Casino

    Mega Millions Returns to the Bicycle Casino

    The 2022 Winnin’ O’ the Green Series at the Bicycle Casino has been doubling its six-figure guarantees all March, leading to optimistic expectations for this week’s series-closing Mega Millions Event. 

    Bicycle Casino
    The Bike will be hosting its popular Mega Millions event starting on Wednesday. (Image: Bicycle Casino)

    The Mega Millions, which has been around since 2011 features several Day 1 sessions played out over the course of a week-and-a-half, with all survivors moving on to the same Day 2 finals. At those finals, players who hadn’t qualified yet can buy in directly for a certain amount much larger than the original Day 1 buy-in. 

    Appeals to all levels

    Bicycle Casino Tournament Director Mo Fathipour is the creator of the Mega Millions tournament, and he is thrilled to have it back at the Bike after a three-year absence.

    “This tournament is suited for everyone. Low buy-in players have $260, average players are at $560, and lots of the big players are waiting until the last day,’ Fathipour told CardsChat. “For the Day 1’s, you can turn $260 into $300,000. Day 2 buy-in players don’t want to waste their time in the first week.”

    Fathipour went on to discuss how double qualifying helps incentivize the smaller buy-in players to play more. “The Day 1’s have over a week to double qualify. If they qualify three or four times, they’ve already locked up over $10,000 going into Day 2. It’s great for everyone.”

    This particular run of the Mega Millions will start on Wednesday, April 6, and will have Day 1 sessions running until Sunday, April 17. There will be buy-in levels of $260, where the top 6% will advance to the finals, and $560, where the top 12% will. The Day 2 finals will take place on Monday, April 18, where players can buy-in directly for $3,500 in the first two hours of play.

    The tournament will play down to the final table on April 19, which will be played out on the Live at the Bike stage on April 20. 

    “This one [Mega Millions] I think is going to be one of the biggest,” Fathipour predicted of the tournament. “Players have told me they are coming. I’m 100% sure it will get over $2 million. The Day 2 buy-in is a bit lower this time, $3,500. I think people will love it.”

    The very first Mega Millions in 2011 saw a total of 5,829 total entries, and it was taken down by Pedram Sofferi. Interestingly enough, Sofferi has just five other cashes for $10,000, and hasn’t recorded a cash since 2011. 

    The event has often drawn criticism for giving poker pros a better chance to make the final table by buying into Day 2, but it wasn’t until the 10th edition of the event that Daniel Strelitz became the first Day 2 player to win it. Since that victory, Jonas Hagstrom, Ari Engel, and Danny Wong have also won the event by buying in on Day 2.

    A past winner is ready to repeat

    Mike Shariati won the event in 2015, and it propelled an incredible 12-month run. After winning the Mega Millions for $275,000, he would then win the Legend of Poker WPT Main Event just a few months later for a career-best score of more than $675,000. He also finished runner up at the LAPC Main Event at Commerce Casino, and would go on to win the WPT Player of the Year that year.

    Mike Shariati
    Mike Shariati kicked off an incredible 12 month run by winning the 2015 Mega Millions. (Image: TheBikeBlog)

    Shariati told us how special this event is to him, and shared that he barely made it to Day 2 with a short stack.

    “I made it to Day 2 but with just five big blinds. I had a good run that day, but the end of the day, I flopped a set but ran into a bigger set and let it go. That ended up being the best hand I played, that fold. Then I made Day 3, and eventually, I won it.”

    Shariati said the win gave him “a ton of confidence” and the bankroll to play the WPT events, where he went on to become that tour’s Player of the Year. “This event is amazing. I don’t know where else you can get a prize pool that big for a buy-in this low,” he said of Mega Millions.

    This will be the first time that the Mega Millions has been run at the Bicycle Casino since Triet Nguyen won the Legends of Poker installment in August of 2019. That event finished in a five-way chop, including none other than Phil Hellmuth, who finished in fifth place, taking home $95,693.