Season XV of the World Poker Tour gets ready to air on Fox Sports Network, and Samuel Panzica wins his second title of the year after topping a final table that included three-time winner Chino Rheem at the Bay 101 Shooting Star event.
There was a time when the TV was my best mate.
I would fall through the front door after a day’s graft, grab a bottle of wine, and veg out in front of the thing as it made me laugh and cry in equal measure.
And then I sold it on Gumtree for £10.
My Macbook touched me in places that TV couldn’t reach.
But long before my break up, I fell in love with The World Poker Tour (WPT). It was hands down the greatest poker show on the planet, and I wouldn’t miss an episode. So it was quite a moment for me when I ended working behind the scenes several years later.
The role that the WPT has played in pulling in new poker punters will never be truly understood, but it’s massive, jungle massive, and on Sunday it begins all again as the Season XV shenanigans begin on Fox Sports Network (FSN).
Coverage of last season’s scintillating WPT action starts with three episodes from the WPT Main Event held in Choctaw, Oklahoma. All told, FSN and its little sister FS2 will air 27 episodes, from nine different Main Events, including a not to be missed fairytale from the Tournament of Champions.
The team remains unchanged with Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten returning to commentate. Lynn Gilmartin returns for a third season as the show’s anchor and Tony Dunst experiences his sixth season as the host of the WPT Raw Deal. And despite several poker players refusing to have their photographs taken with them, the Royal Flush Girls will continue dumping enormous amounts of cash on the table.
Season XV action comes from the WPT Legends of Poker, WPT Borgata Poker Open, WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble, WPT Montreal, WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, WPT LA Poker Classic, WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star, and the WPT Tournament of Champions.
Sam Panzica Wins the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars
Moving on from the old to the new and Sam Panzica has won his second WPT Main Event title of this season; blown the Player of the Year race wide open, and at the same time denied one of the poker’s bad boys from making history at the annual Bay 101 Shooting Stars event.
Chino Rheem is the bad boy. Rheem came into the final table with a 3x chip lead over his nearest rival, 2016 Super High Roller Bowl winner, Rainer Kempe, and high expectations that he would form a club of one as the only player to win four WPT Main Event titles.
But it didn’t work out that way.
Rheem had to settle for third after hitting a sticky patch during his three-way battle with the World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, Anthony Spinella, and the eventual winner Panzica.
The WPT doesn’t allow deal-making at the final table, but once Rheem was out of the way that’s what happened. Both Panzica and Spinella failing to protect the integrity of the competition by announcing on Twitter they had chopped the final with over $1.2m heading into the bank account of Panzica and close to $900,000 heading to Spinella.
Panzica also took down the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble earlier this season for $354,335 and is a hummingbird’s thong away from Benjamin Zamani at the top of the WPT Player of the Year race. Mike Sexton, also closed the gap on Zamani, with another deep run finishing 22nd. The event attracted 806 entrants.
WPT Bay 101 Final Table Results (as per WPT payouts)
1. Sam Panzica – $1,373,000
2. Anthony Spinella – $786,610
3. Chino Rheem – $521,660
4. Paul Volpe – $349,610
5. Dennis Stevermer – $243,090
6. Rainer Kempe – $188,460
WPT Player of the Year Race
1. Benjamin Zamani – 2,500,000 points
2. Sam Panzica – 2,450,000
3. Mike Sexton – 2,100,000
4. Darren Elias – 1,650,000
5. Daniel Strelitz – 1,450,000
