The Ukraine’s Oleg Vasylchenko led wire-to-wire on Day 3 of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Prague Main Event to take the chip lead into the six-handed final table on Tuesday. With 1.595 million chips and a big blind of 20,000, he has an ample advantage on his closest competitor, Tonio Roder, who has 1.150 million.… Read more »
Poker Tournaments
Poker Tournament News
Montreal Nationals Take Down Inaugural Global Poker League World Championship
In a dramatic, winner-take-all final match that went the distance of its “best of 11” format, the Montreal Nationals’ Pascal Lefrancois defeated the Berlin Bears’ Brian Rast to take down the inaugural Global Poker League World Championship. The eight teams that showed up on Tuesday to determine the champion represented the top squads that survived… Read more »
WSOP Announces New Stops for International WSOP Circuit
The World Series of Poker has announced the addition of seven stops to the WSOP International Circuit schedule, bringing the total number of stops on the non-U.S. portion of the Circuit to 14. The first six additions, announced a couple weeks ago, are: Sydney, Australia – November 22 through December 12, 2016 – The Star,… Read more »
Inaugural Global Poker League Season to Conclude This Week
The Global Poker League will wrap up their inaugural season beginning on Tuesday. By the end of the week – Thursday, to be precise – the first champion of the fledgling poker league will be crowned, with that champion taking down a $100,000 grand prize as their reward. After playing through a grueling 14-week regular… Read more »
Troy Quenneville Goes One Further, Wins partypoker $2 Million Guaranteed Event in Punta Cana
Rare is it when the World Poker Tour holds a tournament and there is another event on that calendar that actually bests it not only as far as entries but also tops it with the prize pool. That happened at the end of the week as partypoker, the sponsor for the WPT Caribbean event held… Read more »
Locations Announced for New PokerStars Championships
On December 19, the European Poker Tour will close the doors on their stop in Prague, the Czech Republic, and with the end of the event will come the end of an era. Amaya Gaming, the owners of the EPT, have decided to end one of the most successful tournament tours in the existence of… Read more »
2016 WPT Caribbean Down to Ten Players
The field of the 2016 World Poker Tour (WPT) Caribbean Main Event was pared from 75 to just 10 on Tuesday as the remaining players are on the brink of the televised final table heading into Day 4. Keven Stammen is the chip leader with 1.764 million chips. From the looks of the chip counts,… Read more »
2016 WPT Caribbean Main Event Day 2: Troy Quenneville Surges to Lead Late
Troy Quenneville leads the remaining 75 players at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Caribbean Main Event after Day 2; with 302,000 chips, he is the only player to finish Monday’s action above the 300,000 mark. Alexander Denisov is not far behind with 280,500 chips. After Day 1A’s miniscule turnout, about another 210 entries were paid… Read more »
2016 WPT Caribbean Day 1B: People Actually Showed Up
Fortunately for tournament organizers, Day 1B of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Caribbean Main Event was much larger than Day 1A, though the total Day 1 field of 270 still left WPT Caribbean as one of the smaller stops of the Tour. Jean-Luc Adam emerged as the Day 1B chip leader, finishing with a stack… Read more »
Fedor Holz with Stranglehold on Player of the Year Races
We’re down to the final month of the tournament poker calendar (there are no major tournaments that occur following the European Poker Tour’s swan song in Prague, the Czech Republic on December 19 unless the Aria High Roller tournaments are counted) and the Player of the Year races have virtually been decided. Unless there is… Read more »
2016 WPT Montreal Day 3: Samuel Gagnon Holds Large Lead, Mike Sexton Still Going
Yesterday, I irrationally yelled in ALL CAPS about how players get knocked out of major tournaments so quickly on Day 2, only to have eliminations slow to a crawl after that. We’ll see how slow things go today, as just 17 players remain in the partypoker.net World Poker Tour (WPT) Montreal Main Event. There will… Read more »
2016 WPT Montreal Day 2: Michael Gathy Leads Remaining 50 Players
For some reason, the second day of a major, week-long poker tournament always amuses me. You have hundreds of players who made it through their starting flight, a significant accomplishment for many, and then, just like that, most of them drop by the wayside when they return for Day 2. DOESN’T ANYONE CARE ABOUT THEIR… Read more »
2016 WPT Montreal Day 1: Eric Afriat Leads Three Starting Flights
Before last week’s U.S. Presidential Election, there were some people in the States who said they would move to Canada if Donald Trump won. From the sounds of it, it seems that Trump himself kind of wants to run away, too, now that he realizes what the job entails. If some of those people who… Read more »
Luis Cruz Wins partypoker WPT Nottingham
Luis Cruz had a heck of an uphill climb at the final table, but he defied the odds and chip stacks to beat Christopher Yong heads-up and claim the partypoker World Poker Tour (WPT) Nottingham Main Event title this weekend, along with a £200,000 first prize. Cruz began the six-handed final table with the second-smallest… Read more »
Qui Nguyen Wins 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event
If you are going to play in the World Series of Poker Main Event for the first time, might as well make it a good one. Qui Nguyen, with only $9,000 in live tournament earnings and a WSOP Main Event rookie, won the 2016 WSOP Main Event early this morning, bagging a gaudiest of diamond… Read more »
2016 WSOP November Nine Down to Three: Nguyen, Vayo, Josephy
Qui Nguyen continued his domination of the 2016 World Series of Poker (WSOP) final table Monday, as the field was given a haircut from five to three. Nguyen began the day as the chip leader with 128.625 million chips, slightly more than the next two players combined. He finished with almost 200 million, significantly more… Read more »
Aliaksei Boika Wins EPT Malta Main Event
Aliaksei Boika of Belarus achieved a rare feat over the weekend: he won a European Poker Tour title when starting as the final table’s short stack. At the start of final table play of the EPT Malta Main Event, he had 960,000, about a quarter of the chips that the leader, Mats Karlsson, had. By… Read more »
Qui Nguyen Takes Gigandor Lead into Second Day of WSOP “November Nine” Main Event Final Table
After three and a half months of waiting, the final table of the 2016 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event – the November Nine, if you will – got underway Sunday night. Of course, Sunday night was October 30th, not November, which could be confusing, but that is because the U.S. Presidential Election is… Read more »
2016 EPT Malta Day 4: 14 Players Remain with Mats Karlsson Heading the Pack
Day 4 is history for the European Poker Tour stop in Malta and, after the day was shortened due to the frenetic pace of play, Mats Karlsson has taken the lead of the 14-player pack that will come back for action early Friday morning (U. S. time). 30 players still had chips at the start… Read more »
Global Poker League Playoffs Set, But Why the Delay?
After nearly seven months of action (counting delays), the Global Poker League has reached its playoffs. While one conference had nearly set its four-team roster for the postseason, the other conference had plenty of jostling for position with none of the six teams eliminated as of the start of the final week of the regular… Read more »
2016 EPT Malta Main Event Day 2: Diaz Roars to Front
Guillaume Diaz leads the 2016 European Poker Tour (EPT) Malta Main Event after Day 2. Holding 583,500 chips, Diaz is just one of two players – joined by Gianfranco Visalli with 518,000 – who has eclipsed the half-million chip plateau. Of the 233 players who began Day 2 (plus eight late entrants), just 90 players… Read more »
2016 EPT Malta Main Event Day 1B: Andras Nemeth Head of the Class
As expected, the second starting flight of the 2016 European Poker Tour (EPT) Malta Main Event was significantly larger than the first. 134 players competed in Sunday’s Day 1A, fewer than the number of players who survived Day 1B to make it to Day 2. Day 1B’s player total was 326, nearly two and a… Read more »
2016 EPT Malta Main Event Day 1A: Shak, Sormunen Lead First Flight
It is hard for me to believe that we are just slightly over two months away from 2017. Save for a change in digit, I probably say something to that effect every year, but I don’t know – this year has seemed to just whiz by for me. And when this year ends, so will… Read more »
Seats Being Taken for Global Poker League’s Inaugural Championship Playoff
With one week left in the season, the seats are being grabbed by teams for the Global Poker League’s inaugural Championship Playoff. In one conference, there is only one slot left to be filled while, in the other conference, literally everyone is still alive. In the GPL Americas, two of the playoff seats had been… Read more »
Sam Panzica Mounts Furious Comeback to Win WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble
Sam Panzica and Richard Malone, Jr. started the final table of the 2016 World Poker Tour bestbet Bounty Scramble Main Event in nearly a dead heat for the chip lead, so it only seemed natural that the tournament came down to the two of them. And boy, did it come down to the two of… Read more »