Event 15
The first week of the Winter Poker Open saw six players walk away with WPO trophies and since then, ten more players have walked away with “tiny glass Borgatas”. Those trophies have been awarded through a wide variety of events and the first saw Marc Matz take home the Event 7 ‘Omaha/Stud H/L’ title and an over $6,000 score. That was Matz’s first career tournament win and that kicked off a busy week, with ‘The General’ claiming the next WPO trophy.
That came in the Event 8 ‘Super Stack Elevator’ and prior to the ‘Borgata Million’ starting on Tuesday, James Chen won the Event 9 ‘Pot Limit Omaha High’. The trophies were then kept out of sight for a few days, as that ‘Borgata Million’ played through six starting flights but ‘All-Star Weekend’ did not disappoint, creating plenty of headlines and storylines over the last few days.
The biggest of those storylines was Joe ‘Black’ Reddick claiming his first career title in the $1,000,000 GTD Event 10. Reddick took home just over $215,000 for his ‘Borgata Million’ win and while that wasn’t the first title awarded during ‘All-Star Weekend’, Reddick was the weekend’s highest earner.
Mike Rees was the second biggest earner, after he claimed the Event 11 ‘$1,000 Six Max’ title early Sunday morning. After a nearly seven hour final table, Rees outlasted a stacked field to take home $80,000 and his first BPO title, with Rex Clinkscales doing the same on Saturday night. He won the Event 12 ’40 Big Blind Bounty’ for just over $30,000.
Those two wins bookended Allan Vrooman‘s $100,000 GTD ‘Saturday Series’ win, as he claimed the Event 13 title for his first career Borgata victory. The final trophy awarded on a busy Saturday, saw partypoker’s Jamie Kerstetter take down the Event 16 ‘Charity Series of Poker’ title. That was a win-win for both Kerstetter and the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, as over $13,000 were raised through another extremely successful CSOP event.
While Saturday saw plenty of hardware get handed out, Sunday was a slightly less hectic schedule, with only two players claiming WPO trophies. The first was Alex Benyayev, who outlasted a 75 player field to win the Event 15 ‘Pot Limit Omaha High’, the second event of it’s kind during this WPO series.
The big winner from Sunday though was Matt Emmel, who claimed potentially the most prestigious non-main event title, when he outlasted a 64 player bracket to win Event 14. Emmel, who is a heads up sit & go specialist used that experience to claim the ‘Heads Up Championship’ title and a nearly $50,000 score. Emmel was the last WPO title winner but over the next few days, five more trophies are up for grabs, including the WPT Champions Cup.
The WPO blog will be here to bring you all of that action but if you want to go back and catch up on what’s happened over the last week, the links at the top of this post will bring you to each event’s individual coverage. It should also be noted, that a complete list of results from each event are linked as well.
Event 15 – ’Pot Limit Omaha – High’
Level 16: Blinds 3,000/6,000
Total Entries: 73
Players Remaining: 1
Alex Benyayev – Winter Poker Open Event 15 Champion
It was a quick final table in Event 15 as play wrapped up after only three hours. After all the dust settled, it would be Alex Benyayev taking home the trophy in one of the final preliminary events. Benyayev defeated Jonathan Zarin heads up and rivered a straight against Zarin’s set of kings after all the chips got in preflop. This is Benyayev’s first BPO title and as Benyayev described himself, someone who openly despises hold ’em, a sweet victory. The $9,913 first place prize should make it all the more sweet.
Event 15 – ’Pot Limit Omaha – High’
Level 16: Blinds 3,000/6,000
Total Entries: 73
Players Remaining: 2
Franco Bonacci – 4th Place
Following the eliminations of Franco Bonacci in fourth place ($2,549) and Andrew Whittaker in third place ($3,399), Jonathan Zarin and Alex Benyayev are heads up for the PLO title. Benyayev holds the chip lead with 705,000 to Zarin’s 390,000.
First place prize of $9,913 and eternal glory of being a BPO champion are up for grabs between the two players as the Event 15 reaches its conclusion.
Event 15 – ’Pot Limit Omaha – High’
Level 16: Blinds 3,000/6,000
Total Entries: 73
Players Remaining: 4
Action in the PLO event has been fast and furious as what was supposed to be a two day event is already down to four players.
Below are the remaining players and their chip counts followed up the players who finished in the money so far in this event.
Greg Himmelbrand – 9th Place
1. Alex Benyayev – 340,000
2. Jonathan Zarin – 300,000
3. Andrew Whittaker – 270,000
4. Franco Bonacci – 180,000
5. Rene Sviskid – $1,983
6. David Henry – $1,699
7. Doug Saidenberg – $1,416
8. JJ Tozzi – $1,133
9. Greg Himmelbrand – $850
Event 15 – ’Pot Limit Omaha – High’
Level 1: Blinds 25/50
Total Entries:
After a slight delay, cards are in the air for the second Pot Limit Omaha – High Only tournament of this Winter Poker Open Series!
Players sit down with 15,000 chips and levels 1-15 are 30 minutes long. After that, the PLO players will enjoy 40 minute levels for the rest of the event.
Late registration and re-entry are available until the start of level 7, which should fall at about 6:45pm.
Event 15 – ’Pot Limit Omaha High’
Level 1 (25/50)
Another hour, another event starting up as ‘All Star Weekend’ of the Winter Poker Open is showing no signs of slowing down. The next tournament slated to start in the Event Center is Event 15 ‘Pot Limit Omaha High’. This event has already made one appearance through the first half of this WPO series and it’s returning with a slight bigger buy-in this time around.
Event 15 will see players start with 15,000 chips and play half hour levels through Level 15. Levels will then increase to 40 minutes in length but that likely won’t be until Day 2, as this field will bag up chips at or around 2 AM.
A champion won’t be crowned until Day 2 and the WPO blog will provide updates throughout the next few hours, starting at 3 PM, while also juggling the rest of the ‘All Star Weekend’ action inside the Event Center.
If you thought last weekend was busy, welcome to the Winter Poker Open ‘All-Star Weekend’. With the WPT WPO Championship starting tomorrow, the big names are all in town and that showed yesterday, as a star studded ‘$1,000 NLH Six Max’ field came together. Nearly 340 players built up a massive prize pool and that field will return for Day 2 to first play into the money and then, eventually, play down to a winner.
That is only one of seven WPO titles that is up for grabs this weekend though and the first will be awarded on the live stream, as the ‘Borgata Million’ comes back with 10 players remaining. That will be the main focus of the WPO blog come 4 PM when cards get in the air for that final table and ’40 Big Blinds Bounty’ will also come back for Day 2 this afternoon.
Throw in the always massive ‘$100,000 GTD Saturday Series’, along with the start of the ‘$2,500 Heads Up Championship’, the Charity Series of Poker Turbo event, another ‘Pot Limit Omaha High’ tournament and today’s schedule pretty full, pretty quick. The WPO blog will be here to juggle it all and bring you updates from every event throughout the day, with the first of those updates coming shortly as we preview the ‘Borgata Million’ final table.