Jared Mahoney has won the partypoker World Poker Tour Montreal Main Event, and WPT National Philippines will host a $200,000 Super High Roller.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) continues to lay the groundwork for the inevitable poker explosion in the East with the news that they are hosting a $200,000 buy-in Super High Roller event as part of their WPT National Philippines event at the turn of the new year.
WPT National Philippines has been on the schedule for a long time. The festival will run Jan 4-8. The Solaire Resort & Casino will host. The buy-in for the Main Event has been reduced from $2,200 to $1,650, in a bid to attract more recreational players.
The Super High Roller will take place Jan 3-4. The famed Poker King Club will orchestrate the event. Their President Winfred Yu will ensure attendance of the very best poker players, businessmen and gamblers. Malaysian businessman Richard Yong is one of the first players to commit.
Yong was held under house arrest in Las Vegas for his part in the 2014 illegal sports betting ring in connection with the FIFA World Cup. He paid his fine, flew to Australia and won the $100,000 Challenge at the Aussie Millions for close to $1.5m.
The Hong Kong-listed corporation OurGame acquired the WPT in the summer for $35m cash. The new team will be desperate to expose the Asian public to the WPT. Hosting the richest buy-in event in WPT history – even superseding any WPT Alpha8 event – is one way to go about things.
It’s not the first time the WPT has dropped anchor in Asian waters this year. In October, 882 entrants sat down to play in the WPT National China Main Event at the MGM Grand Sanya. Yours truly was asked to attend that event. I had to turn it down because I was working in the beautiful surroundings of Nottingham.
Jared Mahoney Wins partypoker WPT Montreal
Jared Mahoney is the latest addition to the WPT Champions club after beating Darryll Fish in heads-up action to take the first prize of $341,332 in the partypoker WPT Montreal Main Event at the Playground Poker Club.
It was Mahoney’s biggest win by some distance. His previous best score was $32,000 for a 40th place finish at the PokerStars Carribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event in 2008. Fish was making his third final table. He has now earned close to $700,000 in live tournaments during 2015, his greatest annual haul in almost a decade.
697 players entered the event, creating a total prize pool of $1.7m. Other notable players who cashed were WPT Champions Club members Giacomo Fundaro (9th), Darren Elias (11th) and Randy Pfeifer (15th).
WPT Montreal Final Table Results
1st. Jared Mahoney – $341,332
2nd. Darryll Fish – $229,258
3rd. Rainer Kempe – $147,599
4th. Brian Altman – $109,061
5th. Carter Swidler – $81,664
6th. Alexander Gambino – $65,927
