Justin Bonomo is the €100k Super High Roller event chip leader at the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo. Bonomo holds a commanding 4.39m chip count, well ahead of closest competitor Tobias Reinkemeier’s 1.682m stack. When play resumes Wednesday at noon local time, the rest of the eight-handed final table playing for a share of the €4.43m prize pool – €1.64m of which goes to the eventual winner – will look as follows: Daniel Negreanu (1.581m); Bertrand Grospellier (1.265m); Masa Kagawa (1.076m); Jonathan Duhamel (654k); Patrik Antonius (338k) and Eugene Katchalov (262k).
Stateside, Tommy Vedes has taken the World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown main event title, earning $779k for outlasting 289 other players who did battle at the Florida casino. Vedes began final table play with the shortest stack, but held on to force heads-up action against 2010 WSOP November Niner John Dolan. Despite Dolan holding a more than 2:1 chip advantage at the start of mano y mano play, he ultimately came up short, settling for second place and $459k. The win marks Vedes’ second WPT title, having scooped the WPT Festa al Lago main event in 2009 for an even larger sum ($1.2m).
Moving north to Atlantic City, Jia Liu earned $312k for outlasting a 520-strong field at the $2,500 buy-in 2012 Borgata Spring Poker Open. The payday is the largest of Liu’s career. Last to fall at Liu’s hands was Larry Abrams, who collected $175k for his runner-up position. Meanwhile, Tripp Kirk overcame 624 competitors to take the main event at the World Series of Poker Circuit Harrah’s St. Louis on Monday, earning $191k, a shiny gold ring and an invite to the National Championship this summer. Tim Killday finished second, earning $118k.
Annette Obrestad has signed on with LockPoker’s LockPRO Elite team. The move comes just days after the youngest ever winner of a World Series of Poker Europe bracelet announced she’d signed with poker representation agency Poker Royalty. Lock was also in recent headlines over the abrupt cancellation of its heavily marketed “LockOps” online tournament, which was scheduled to begin May 6. Lock representatives have said little about the cancellation, other than to claim that the rug was pulled out by Lock’s network supplier, Merge Gaming. An email sent to Lock affiliates claimed the company was ‘gutted’ that Merge allegedly gave the promotion its blessing, only to change its mind after the fact. Theories for LockOps’ demise have ranged from (a) other skins on Merge protesting Lock’s obvious player poaching attempt, (b) Lock not having the money to back up its $2m guarantee or (c) José ‘Girah’ Macedo having acquired a Jennifer Larson-shaped voodoo doll.
