Live tournament update sees Maryland Live! Casino unveil plans for a $1m Guaranteed Series, Sam Higgs wins Aussie Millions Event #5, and WPT Borgata/EPT Deauville run into their respective day 4’s.
Maryland Live! Casino has been setting the East Coast poker skies alight ever since it opened it’s doors back in the summer of 2012.
Things could not be sweeter for the Arundel Mills casino and for the month of Dec 2013 Maryland Live! earned $53m of the $66.8m raked in by all of the brick and mortar casinos in the state – that’s a 56% increase from the number released 12-months prior.
Those juicy figures have given the casino an increased confidence that has led to a muscle flexing announcement that they will host the $1 Million Live Poker Classic in March.
The festival will contain nine events set over a two-week period with $1m in prize money guaranteed for the people taking part. The peach of the fruit bowl will be a $3,500 Main Event from March 21-24, and the Director of Operations, Mike Smith, is warning player’s to register early to avoid disappointment.
“The poker room at Maryland Live! has enjoyed terrific success since opening last August,” said Smith. “We have welcomed poker players from all over the country, both professional and amateur, who bring with them the demand for a poker tournament series of this caliber.”
The full schedule for the event can be found here
Sam Higgs Wins Aussie Millions Event #5: $1,100 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO)
After a series of near misses the Australian Sam Higgs has finally snagged himself an Aussie Millions Championship ring after coming out on top of a 213-player field in Event #5: $1,100 PLO.
Higgs has a 7th place finish, and two runner-up finishes in Aussie Millions side-events, as well as a 5th place finish in a World Series of Poker (WSOP) $5k No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Six Max event; so he will be delighted to finally get that particular monkey off his back.
It’s never easy to win a side event at the Aussie Millions and this one was no exception as Higgs had to plough through a final table that included Hall of Famer Gary Benson (8th) and WSOP bracelet winner Jarred Graham (5th), before finally eliminating Slade Fisher in heads-up action to take the $47,500 first prize.
Final Table Standings
1st. Sam Higgs – $47,500
2nd. Slade Fisher – $34,050
3rd. Adam Monaghan – $26,630
4th. Ali Khouiss – $20,240
5th. Jarred Graham – $15,980
6th. Timo Pfutzenreuter – $12,780
7th. Anthony Hachem – $9,590
8th. Gary Benson – $6,930
9th. Elizabeth Montizanti – $5,330
Farid Jattin Leads the Final 36 Players at WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open
The third day of action at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Borgata Winter Poker Open has ended with 36-players having their names emblazoned on the front of a plastic bag containing chips.
The one bag that weighs more than any other belongs to Farid Jattin who is coming off the back of a six-figure score achieved in a $1k event at the Isle Poker Classic in Pompano Beach.
It’s going to be a very interesting run down with some interesting characters still remaining in the competition. WPT Champions Club member Jared Jaffee is sitting in second place and could scoop up some serious WPT Player of the Year points, former WPT Player of the Year Faraz Jaka also has a good vantage point in the pack, and with Byron Kaverman, Chad Brown and Joe Serock still in the chasing pack things look very promising indeed.
Ekrem Sanioglu Leads Day 3 EPT Deauville
The biggest event in Europe right now is the European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event in Deauville and Ekrem Sanioglu is leading the remaining 41-players with 1.3m in chips.
Sanioglu has never cashed in an EPT event before this amazing run, but one man who has is Eugene Katchalov. The Team PokerStars Pro finished Day 3 towards the right end of the leaderboard as he continues his pursuit of that coveted Triple Crown.
Former EPT Champion Zimnan Ziyard, WSOP bracelet winner Norbert Szecsi, former EPT Player of the Year Ondrej Vinklarek and UK hot shot JP Kelly are all still vying for that first place prize of €614,000.
