Three tales that aren’t big enough to conjure up 300 words on their lonesome including Maurice Hawkins winning a Heartland Poker Tour title, Alex Jim taking down a massive World Series of Poker Circuit event at Foxwoods, and PokerStars offering an olive branch to those affected by the recent DDoS attacks.
Typically, I like to find three topics that gel in my 3: barrel articles, but it’s late, I’m cream-crackered, and I’ve missed my deadline for the second day in a row because I don’t know where I am, what day it is, or what my name is.
So.
You.
Get.
Two live tournament tales, and a kiss and makeup from an online giant.
We begin with the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) grandmaster Maurice Hawkins who this weekend proved he is capable of winning more than gold rings.
The 11-time WSOPC gold ring winner has a Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) title after winning the $1,650 buy-in Main Event at the Ameristar Casino, Resort & Spa in St. Charles.
The event pulled in a crowd of 347 entrants and $492,740 in prize money, and Hawkins defeated Harry Sablotny, heads-up, to bank the $113,322 first prize. It was Hawkins’ most significant win since finishing sixth in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Monster Stack, last year, for $213,591.
Here are the final table results.
1. Maurice Hawkins – $113,322
2. Harry Sablotny – $71,743
3. Keith Heine – $48,042
4. Alan Perry – $33,506
5. Daniel Loizzo – $25,130
6. John Richards – $19,710
7. Ryan Julius – $16,655
8. Gregory Wood – $13,797
The win takes Hawkins’ overall live tournament earnings to $3,269,168.
Alex Jim Wins Big at WSOPC Foxwoods
From Ameristar to Foxwoods, and the WSOPC event has gotten off to a fantastic start in Mashantucket.
Tournament organisers slapped a $500,000 Guarantee on Event #2 $600 No-Limit Hold’em (multi-flight), and 1,560 entrants dragged in $803,400 removing all shades of red to the trash can.
Alex Jim took the title and $134,570 in prize money after defeating Jeremy Wing, heads-up. The win was Jim’s most significant of his career by a country mile.
The 26-year-old told WSOP reporters after his win that he is primarily an online player, who recently transitioned to live tournaments, and it was nice to have finally won one after coming close so many times.
Mmm…
I can’t seem to find those ‘so many times’ Alex.
Here are the final table results:
1. Alex Jim – $134,570
2. Jeremy Wing – $83,313
3. Chris Chou – $62,665
4. Charles Sawyer – $47,802
5. Stephen Saranteas – $36,394
6. Bassioni Hamouda – $27,958
7. Soukha Kachittavong – $21,773
8. Gregory Gratton – $17,112
9. Paul Jones – $13,730
PokerStars Offer DDoS Olive Branch
From the live realm to its virtual cousin and PokerStars has reacted to their recent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) problems by setting up $500,000 in freerolls as a way of an apology.
The largest online poker room in the world suffered a raft of DDoS attacks two weekends ago and had to cancel a myriad of tournaments including their flagship Sunday Million event.
The whole thing was a complete mess prompting all manner of complaints from PokerStars players on how much money they should have been entitled to, stack sizes at the time of disconnection and anything else that gave people the ability to have a good old whinge.
Here is the official word.
Was this you last week? We felt the same. We’re truly sorry and want to make up for it with $500,000 in value, across 5 freerolls from Aug 22. Anyone affected by the disconnections can choose any 3/5 freerolls. Locate your ticket here: Desktop> Tools> My games & tickets> Tickets pic.twitter.com/9JCvsET8jp
— PokerStars (@PokerStars) August 21, 2018
There is a caveat.
The winners of the events will earn $5,300 seats into the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) $10m GTD Main Event, and not cash prizes.
That’s if the DDoS brigade doesn’t have another punt during the most iconic online poker festival of the year.
