The Mid-Stakes Poker Tour’s stop at Jacks Casino nearly doubled its $500,000 guarantee. Jonathan Lewis came out on top, winning $176,681 in this installment of the tour’s stop in the city on Lake Erie.
Jonathan Lewis won the MSPT’s Main Event in Cleveland for $176,681. (Image: MSPT)
The $929,700 prize pool was generated by 960 $1,110 entries over three days starting on Aug. 31. The entries broke down this way: 224 on Day 1A, 336 on 1B, and 424 from 1C, which was Saturday.
The top stacks returned on Sunday, where after 15 hours of play, Lewis won all of the chips and the smirking trophy that will scare his houseguests when they search for the bathroom in the middle of the night.
The top 99 won at least $2,231, but because of the structure, a handful of players had to return on the final day only to be find nothing but bubbles.
Those who made it to the cashier’s counter include Don Carlton (10th for $13,015), WSOP bracelet winner Katie Kopp (24th for $6,414), MSPT Season 14 Player of the Year points leader Umut Ozturk (33rd for $4,090), and MSPT Hall of Famer Rob WazWaz (42nd for $3,160).
This is Lewis’ first MSPT title. George Janssen, who made the final table, was hunting for his second.
Final nine of $1,110 MSPT Main Event at Jack’s Casino
Jonathan Lewis, $176,681
Ray Ezzie, $108,774
George Janssen, $79,861
Dave Evans, $60,430
Veerab Zakarian,$45,555
Eric Kois, $34,398
Derrick Brown, $26,961
Auston Hanna, $21,383
Clinton Branchen, $16,734
Double-stop at The Venetian
The MSPT is double-dipping at The Venetian on the Strip in Las Vegas this week.
On Wednesday, Sept. 6, is the first of two starting days of a $250,000 guaranteed, $1,110 event. Then on Friday, Sept. 8, a $400,000 guaranteed $1,600 buy-in event kicks-off with its first of two Day 1’s.
Two-hundred dollar satellites takes place the night before each event.
The two MSPT-branded events are part of The Venetian’s Deepstack Extravaganza series that started Aug. 28. The casino is guaranteeing $2.5 in prizes across 50 tournaments that run until Oct. 1.
Most of the events have guarantees of at least $5,000, and several have much larger promises like the $800 event and its $250,000 prize pool that begins Thursday, Sept. 8.
That’s not the only one. A three-day, $200,000 guaranteed event with a $600 buy-in starts Sept. 14, while a $100,000 guaranteed $400 event starts Sept. 11.
All the tourneys give the players more chips to start with than the usual Tuesday night events at, say, The Orleans. Levels of most events are 30 minutes, but they go to 40 for the bigger buy-in tourneys.
Daniel Negreanu streaming his play while battling for World Series of Poker bracelet events online, a new poker room coming to Florida, and the Venetian finding a strange sportsbook partner are some of the short stacks CardsChat picked up in the latest orbit of poker news.
(Image: YouTube)
Negreanu streaming GGPoker WSOP bracelet action
Daniel Negreanu is in Vancouver, Canada for the next couple of weeks to play in a bunch of WSOP.com bracelet events that are currently being run on GGPoker.
And as GGPoker ambassador, he’ll live-stream the events he plays in, which are available watch for free through Negreanu’s social channels.
We’re watching through YouTube. He played and streamed the $2,500 Limit Hold’em Championship today. Here’s the rebroadcast.
Keep an eye on his socials for his WSOP streaming schedule.
Negreanu is coming off a High Stakes Duel win against Doug Polk. The chat feature is open while Negreanu plays, and fans peppered him with questions about the match (among many other things) during today’s four-plus long stream.
The WSOP series runs until Oct. 2.
The Venetian and Yahoo are now partners
The Venetian announced a branding partnership with Yahoo as part of its newly redesigned sportsbook. The name of the online and media supernova will be plastered on the walls and over machines that can take sports bets. Those machines, as well as the rest of the sportsbook, are powered by William Hill.
The redesign features a 1,770-square-feet video wall.
“We wanted to create the best place on the Strip to watch sports,” said Patrick Nichols, president and chief executive officer of The Venetian Resort Las Vegas. “This redesign pulls through the relaxed feeling of watching a game with your friends – plush sofas, lounge chairs, great game-day eats with the convenience of betting powered by William Hill. And through the partnership with Yahoo, we’re sure to have additional surprises in store for our guests as we move into football season and beyond.”
Vice President and Head of West Region Digital Operations at William Hill US, Michael Grodsky, is only happy they are now set up on The Strip.
“We are thrilled to power this new sportsbook on The Strip,” Grodsky said. “Our market-leading tech has provided a best-in-class retail sportsbook experience in Nevada for a long time, and we can’t wait to bring this high-powered partnership to life for more sports fans alongside our new William Hill mobile sports wagering app.”
Seats for 109 spectators and a new bar was also added so patrons can drown their tears in Patron after Dicker the Kicker misses the walk-off. Hey, at least the seats will be lush and comfortable.
New poker room coming to Ocala, Fla.
Ocala Bets, a small casino in north-central Florida, is gearing up to open a new poker room later this Summer. It will be the third poker room in the city, joining Oxford Downs and Ocala Gainesville Poker & Jai Alai.
The room will have 35 tables and a full bar. And they’re hiring.
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The PokerGo Tour took a brief break over the holidays, but it returns with a vengeance on Wednesday with its first $10,000 event of 2022.
The 2022 PokerGo Tour gets underway on Wednesday with the first of four, high-stakes events at the Venetian. (Image: PokerGo)
PokerGo’s stable of high-stakes events has grown steadily since it launched in 2017. Mori Eskandani, PokerGo’s president, parlayed this growth into a new series last year.
The inaugural season of the PokerGo Tour got underway in June 2021 and featured 150 tournaments costing $10,000+. Despite the ongoing impact of COVID restrictions, it was enough of a success for the organizers to get out of the gate early in 2022.
PokerGo Tour mixing things up in 2022
The Venetian in Las Vegas will host the first event of the second season. A total of four tournaments will run from Jan. 5 to Jan. 8, with buy-ins ranging from $10,000 to $25,000.
Jan. 5 – $10,000 Venetian High Roller #1
Jan. 6 – $10,000 Venetian High Roller #2
Jan. 7 – $15,000 Venetian High Roller #3
Jan. 8 – $25,000 Venetian High Roller #4
The PokerGo Tour will then move across the Las Vegas strip to the Aria, where it will host a unique series of tournaments known collectively as the Stairway to Millions. The first Stairway tournament starts on Jan. 12 and costs $1,000 to enter.
Anyone who cashes in that event will be entered into the second Stairway to Millions tournament. That tournament costs $2,000 and gets underway on Jan. 13. This process of players stepping up to ever more expensive tournaments continues until the $100,000 finale takes place on Jan. 19.
Tournaments will combine fan favorites and innovative ideas
Players can buy directly into any of the eight Stairway to Millions tournaments, however, the main idea of the series is to give players with smaller bankrolls a chance to move up the ranks. Unlike standard satellites where the aim is to progress to the next stage, Stairway events play down to a winner. That means anyone who makes it into the money not only gets entry to the next event, but also wins some cash.
He’ll have the opportunity to defend his title starting on Wednesday. In addition to the opening events at the Venetian and Aria, this year’s tour will see the return of popular tournaments such as the PokerGo Cup, the Heads-Up Championship, and the Super High Roller Bowl.
The WSOP Main Event is in full swing, but tournament players aren’t sitting idly by while the final few battle for an $8 million top prize. With events taking place across the US and the world at large, another crop of big winners has bet their way into the spotlight this week. In addition to shining a light on breakout performances from grinders like Milos Ivanovic, we’ve got the lowdown on UNO’s first-ever world champion. To see how a game of UNO earned someone $50,000 and more, scroll down for our Big Winners of the Week ending Nov. 14.
(Image: WSOP)
Scott Ball
Little One for One Drop
World Series of Poker
$396,445
Just a few weeks after winning his first WSOP bracelet, Ball kept the rungood rolling in one of the series’ marquee events — a $1,111 NLH that sends 10% to the One Drop Foundation. The five-day tournament at the Rio in Las Vegas attracted 3,797 entrants for a prize pool of more than $3.8 million and a $380K donation to the cause of global clean water. Ball’s victory brings his total winnings for the 2021 WSOP to more than $1.5 million, and puts him in second place for WSOP Player of the Year and first place on the Velo “No Limits” leaderboard.
(Image: Twitter/The Wynn)
Milos Ivanovic
Wynn Classic No Limit Hold’em $400K GTD
$201,898
Ivanovic may have squeaked into our list of this week’s Big Winners after the Wynn’s $1,100 event trickled over into Sunday morning, but he’s a more-than-worthy addition. The Chicago pro is in Las Vegas for tournament season and already had fifth-place finish at the Fall Classic prior to beating a field of 1,438 entries on Sunday. Ivanovic came through a tough final table that included former GUKPT champion Yiannis Liperis on route to picking up his biggest payday by more than $160,000.
(Image: Paul Phua Poker)
Artur Martirosyan
Main Event
Eurasian Poker Tour Casino Sochi
₽7,150,150
($100,736)
Martirosyan might be a solid bet to do well in any WSOP event he enters, but the Russian wasn’t in Las Vegas last week. Instead, he stayed in his native Russia, a decision that proved to be profitable as he outlasted a 598-entry field on Sunday to win the $10,500 EAPT main event. The Partypoker-sponsored event attracted some of Eastern Europe’s top pros and upcoming stars. However, it was 2021 Super High Roller Bowl Europe champion Martirosyan who added to his $2.7 million in live earnings with a convincing victory over fellow Russian, Artur Adamyants.
(Image: Facebook/King’s Resort)
Bjoern Smolders
Main Event
German Poker Days Kings Resort
€65,450
($75,043)
The German Poker Days’ marquee tournament might have taken place in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, but that didn’t stop 2,206 players from anteing up, or 174 of those entrants from exercising their right to rebuy last week. Nor did it stop Dutch amateur Smolders from scoring the biggest payday of his poker career on Sunday. Even in the face COVID restrictions in Europe, Smolders was able to enter the €175 ($200) event and grind his way through four days of poker to beat Frenchman Safwane Bahri heads-up. In addition to picking up a five-figure prize, Smolders earned a reason to return to Rozvadov at the start of December thanks to a free seat in the €10,000 ($11,400) WSOPE Main Event.
(Image: Twitter/VenetianPoker)
Joseph Cook
NLH DeepStack Championship The Venetian
$67,894
Cook’s trip from Arizona to Las Vegas has been a successful one over the past two weeks. He cashed in Event #8 at the WSOP for $1,050 and went deep in the Main Event last week before hitting the rail in 322nd place. Cook took a portion of his $33,900 Main Event winnings across the Strip to the Venetian on Saturday for the $1,100 one-day deep stack event. After weaving his way through a field of 341 players, Cook chopped the prize money heads-up to take his weekly winnings over the $100,000 mark.
(Image: Sean Compton)
Aldwin Rodriguez
UNO Championship Series Invitational
HyperX Esports Arena
$50,000
At 20, Rodriguez isn’t even old enough to play most games offered at the Luxor in Las Vegas. But in the HyperX Esports Arena, where he took on seven other finalists to claim the first-ever world championship for UNO, the long-time kitchen table staple. More than 450,000 people watched the mechanical engineering major at Sacramento State University compete against a star-studded field via UNO’s new TikTok channel. Despite beating a host of famous faces, including gamer Richard Tyler Blevins (aka Ninja), and retired NASCAR racing driver Clint Bowyer, Rodriguez isn’t turning pro. Instead, he’s going to use the largest UNO prize in history to help his family.
(Image: Canterbury Park)
Tony Wazwaz
Cheap and Deep Canterbury Park
$24,460
The poker community might be focused on the big money events at the WSOP right now, but tournament life goes on elsewhere in the US. The aptly named Cheap and Deep attracted a bumper field of 648 players to Shakopee, Minnesota, last week. That gave local grinder Wazwaz the chance to turn his $300 buy-in into a five-figure sum and his biggest win to date on Sunday night. The Canterbury Park Casino regular eventually cut a deal with Yer Vang before winning the final pot and lifting the trophy.
They say that success breeds success and this week’s collection of champions certainly proves that. From Michael Addamo making the PokerGo Tour his own to Jack Hardcastle continuing to impress in his breakout year, our top picks have all shown that momentum is a powerful thing. To see who else has hit their stride in recent days, scroll down for our list of Big Winners for the week ending Sunday, October 3.
(Image: Poker Central)
Michael Addamo
Super High Roller Bowl VI PokerGo Studio
$3,402,000
Addamo is on the heater to end all heaters after winning the sixth Super High Roller Bowl. The Australian has made the PokerGo Tour his own over the last two weeks thanks a brace of wins at the recent Poker Masters. While some would have been content to bank $1.8 million, Addamo decided to invest $300,000 and take part in PokerGo’s super high-stakes showdown on Wednesday. 21 of the world’s finest players started, but Addamo was on a roll that no one could stop. Justin Bonomo put up a spirited fight in the end, but Addamo clinched the final pot with a flush to win the title and take his recent earnings to more than $5.2 million.
(Image: World Poker Deals)
Nikolay Tulin
‘badlucktou’
Venom PKO Americas Cardroom
$716,095
($411,687 + $304,408 in bounties)
The popular Venom series continued to impress this week, which meant Tulin turned a modest investment (by poker standards) into a life-changing sum of money. A total of 2,321 players anted up in the $2,650 event. That meant the $5 million guarantee was beaten and the winner took home more than $410,000. That’s a significant payout in its own right. However, because this was a PKO version of Venom, Tulin was able to increase his overall return by banking a bevy of bounties. After he beat Jamie Reardon on Thursday, he picked up a total of $304,408 in bounty prizes. So, once the dust had settled and the Russian pro claimed his first major online title, his total payout was worth more than $700,000.
(Image: Partypoker)
Giorgiy Skhulukhiya
Partypoker Live Millions North Cyprus Merit Crystal Cove
$683,285
Skhulukhiya won Partypoker’s first post-COVID lockdown live event in just about as dominant a fashion as possible last week. 839 players entered the $5,300 main event, but only eight would make it to Monday’s final table. Skhulukhiya started as one of the biggest stacks and he used every chip to his advantage. It took two hours for Harpreet Gill to strike the first decisive blow and eliminate Hadi Khadra. From there, Skhulukhiya took control. The Georgian eliminated the final seven players, and he did it all within two hours. The final player to succumb to Skhulukhiya’s onslaught was Robert Heidorn. A♠ 8♣ got the job done and, with that, Skhulukhiya picked up the biggest win of his career.
(Image: PokerTube)
Connor Drinan
World Series of Poker
$1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better
Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino
$163,252
Drinan, a longtime fixture on the professional circuit, claimed his second career WSOP bracelet on Sunday night, winning Event #5 of the series. Drinan entered the event’s final day — and its final table — as the chip leader, though he didn’t stay at the top of the ladder throughout the session. Even so, he outlasted an accomplished group of competitors, including four-time WSOP bracelet winner Robert Mizrachi (third place for $71,602) to claim his second WSOP title and the first-place prize. The win is Drinan’s first at a live WSOP event; he claimed his first bracelet and a $1.4 million prize in last year’s WSOP Online $10K Super Millions event on GG Poker.
(Image: Grosvenor)
Jack Hardcastle
GUKPT Leeds
Grosvenor Westgate
£72,200
($98,836)
Hardcastle made easy work of the latest GUKPT final table. The English pro made the 250-mile trip from Portsmouth to Leeds last week to join 438 other players in the £750 ($1,015) main event. Grosvenor’s live tour has been cranking out champions for the last two months thanks to lockdown restrictions easing in the UK. Hardcastle took full advantage of that by winning his second event of 2021. The Englishman won the WPT Montreal Online main event in January before going on to finish fourth in the WPT DeepStack Showdown at the Venetian in Las Vegas. That run of form stood him in good stead at Monday’s final table where he defeated James Williams to claim his first GUKPT Main Event title.
(Image: WSOP)
Jeremy Ausmus
World Series of Poker
COVID-19 Relief Charity Event Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino
$48,681
In early WSOP action this year, Ausmus picked up the series’ first open bracelet on Friday. While 420 players anted up in the WSOP’s opening event, it was only open to people who work in the industry. Therefore, when the COVID charity event started on Thursday, it was a chance for everyone to play for a good cause and, possibly, win a bracelet. Two hundred sixty-six players did exactly that; the $1,000 charity event took two days to complete and Ausmus came out on top. The American pro almost missed the deadline for entering the turbo event due to his own indecision and the long queues at the Rio. Once in the mix, however, he embraced the 20-minute levels and cruised to victory. The win earned Ausmus his second WSOP bracelet and took his lifetime earnings above the $8.7 million mark.
(Image: The Venetian/Twitter)
Matthew Zazaian
Mid-States Poker Tour Monster Stack
DeepStack Championship Poker Series II The Venetian
$9,248
Zazaian picked up the second biggest win of his career at the perfect time last week. The Michigan native anted up in the $400 opening event of the Mid-States Poker Tour’s Las Vegas-based series. With the Venetian playing host, 92 players sat down for a shot at glory on Monday. It would only take a few hours for Zazaian to carve his way through the field and beat Likang Berninger heads-up. The timely bankroll boost might not get Zazaian into the Main Event. However, with the WSOP underway and plenty of tournaments on the menu, he might find it profitable to stay in Vegas for the next few weeks.
Adelson passed away from complications related to his treatment for Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He leaves behind a wife, children, grandchildren, and 50,000 employees.
Adelson Created an Empire
The man behind such casinos as The Venetian in Las Vegas divided opinions in poker. To many who worked in one of his casinos, Adelson was a generous boss.
When COVID-19 shut down Las Vegas in 2020, he guaranteed workers full pay and health care benefits. As the press release on his passing notes, Adelson referred to himself as “team member number one.”
His business career started at the age of 12 when he purchased a license to sell newspapers in Boston. This entrepreneurial spirit led him to create a number of businesses during his teens and early 20s.
Eventually, with a group of partners, he created a series of trade shows for the computer industry known as COMDEX. That quickly became one of the biggest names in the industry. Adelson sold the company and COMDEX for $862 million in 1995. That netted him a personal fortune of more than $500 million. By that time, he was already onto his next project.
The American businessman parlayed his success with COMDEX into the purchase of the Sands Hotel and Casino in 1988. He added a convention center to the Las Vegas venue a year later, and continued to expand throughout the nineties.
At the time of his death, Adelson owned casino resorts in the US, Singapore, and Macau. His estimated net worth was listed as $38.5 billion in 2020.
Online Poker Players Can’t Forget
While many of his employees were complimentary, some poker players and industry veterans haven’t been over the years. Adelson was a high-profile opponent of online poker in the US.
In 2013, he said in an interview with the Washington Post that he would “spend whatever it takes” to ban online gambling. He funded the Coalition To Stop Internet Gambling and, while his efforts weren’t successful, Adelson did hamper the regulatory process.
Poker players, particularly those who grew up online, have never forgotten this. Indeed, when news of his passing broke, Vanessa Selbst didn’t hold back. As well as looking forward to “better things,” she referred to the late billionaire as a POS.
The best thing I can say about Sheldon Adelson was that he was such a POS that he unified the two disparate circles in my life–progressive liberals and poker players (in our immense amount of hatred for him). May his death be a sign of better things to come for both communities.
It wasn’t only in poker that Adelson was a divisive figure. He donated more than $25 million to Donald Trump during his presidential campaign. He was also noted for his ownership of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and his influence on matters in Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Sara and I are heartbroken by the passing of Sheldon Adelson.
He was a wonderful friend to us personally and an incredible champion of the Jewish people, the Jewish state and the alliance between Israel and America.
Whether it’s in poker or in politics, Adelson will be remembered in two different lights. What’s undeniable though is his impact in both arenas.
For poker, in particular, his casinos host thousands of players every year, and employ just as many workers. His opposition to online gaming may have earned him some enemies, but his name won’t be forgotten by anyone in poker for a long time to come.
