Kevin Eyster has won his second World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Event title, and in doing so inserts himself into the Hublot WPT Season XIV Player of the Year lead.
Eyster won his first title back in Season XI when he overcame a field of 542 entrants to win the $660,395 first prize in the $5,000 buy-in WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown. He earned his second title, and $1,587,382 in prize money, after defeating 639 entrants in the $10,000 buy-in Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas. Sandwiched in between those two years was a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet win. It’s safe to say that Kevin Eyster is one hell of a player.
The two-time champion started the final table second in chips to Jake Schwartz, who was making his second appearance at a WPT final table this season, after finishing sixth in the $5,000 buy-in WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble last month.
Schwartz wasn’t the only player making his second WPT final table appearance of the season. Live cash game pro, Cate Hall, continuing
her smooth transfer to the live tournament scene with her second final table appearance, after finishing fifth in the $3,500 buy-in WPT Maryland Live! event in September. Hall started the final table with the second lowest stack.
The smallest stack belonged to the man who eventually made it to heads-up action. Bill Jennings spinning 16 big blinds into a check for $929,745, after losing a close heads-up encounter against Eyster. The pair got it in on [As] [9s] [4c] [4h] with Eyster holding [Ad] [Qc] for two pairs, and Jennings showing [Kh] [9d] for a worse two pair. Eyster also wins a $15,400 WPT Tournament of Champions seat, a pair of gold 24K Monster Headphones, a Hublot Oceanographic 4000 watch, and an Aurae Solid Gold Mastercard with $10,000 loaded on it.
WPT Five Diamond Final Table Results
1st. Kevin Eyster – $1,587,382
2nd. Bill Jennings – $929,745
3rd. Ben Yu – $607,433
4th. Jake Schwartz – $412,187
5th. Cate Hall – $291,320
6th. Eddie Ochana – $226,238
Fedor Holz Leads the Alpha 8 Final Table
The first time I saw Fedor Holz was in the Winter of 2013 when he was beating players up for fun at the WPT Austrian Poker Festival in Baden. I thought he was too young to play. Back then, his live results were non-existent. Today, he is a World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) World Champion, and a new member of the Super High Roller (SHR) fraternity.
Holz cashed in the tournament mentioned above in 30th place for $31,611 and immediately hopped into the $100,000 buy-in WPT Alpha8 event. 45 players entered, generating a prize pool of $4,414,500 and the winner will take home $1,509,219. Holz is currently leading the final eight players by some margin, although a particular WPT Champions Club member by the name of Daniel Negreanu will have a few words to say about the German taking home the title.
WPT Alpha8 Final Table Chip Counts
1st. Fedor Holz – 4,865,000
2nd. Nick Petrangelo – 1,750,000
3rd. Keith Tilson – 1,630,000
4th. Sean Winter – 1,355,000
5th. Daniel Negreanu – 1,325,000
6th. Kathy Lehne – 1,255,000
7th. Ankush Mandavia – 765,000
8th. David Peters – 555,000
WPT National Philippines SHR – 21 Confirmed
PokerNews Editor-in-Chief, Donnie Peters, has done a little digging and turned up 21 confirmed names for the WPT National Philippines Festival of Poker $200,000 Super High Roller.
The Poker King Club has revealed that Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Sam Trickett, Daniel “Jungleman” Cates, Andrew Robl, Vivek Rajkumar, Andrew Pantling and the above mentioned Fedor Holz are all going to play in the event billed as the largest buy-in event in WPT history.
The event will take place Jan 3-4, 2016. The Solaire Resort & Casino will host. The Cali Group will sponsor. Joining the above-mentioned stars will be a host of Asian players and businessman spearheaded by Richard Yong, Paul Phua and Stanley Choi.
