Three stories from the World Poker Tour to catch up on including a round-up of the WPTDeepStacks action in Brussels, a sponsorship deal with Matt DiBenedetto, and a change of venue for the final table of the WPT Five Diamond Poker Classic.
Brussels.
The only place where I have seen the poor use babies and bunnies in a bid to extract a euro or two from passers-by, and a place that the World Poker Tour (WPT) likes to call home.
The WPT and the Grand Casino Viage have a long-term working relationship, and this week the WPTDeepStacks was in town for their €1,200 buy-in event, and it was another humdinger.
Between them, the brand and the casino dragged 535-entrants away from all the fries, chocolate and Tintin comics. 19 of them made the final day, including the recent Unibet Poker Belgian Championship winner, Christophe De Meulder, (12th), the former WPT Main Event runner-up, Paul Berende (15th) and WPT Champions Club member, Guillaume Darcourt (17th).
The man dining on champagne and lobster was Danny van Zijp, who came back from a 2.5-1 heads-up chip deficit to beat Jose Astima after his pocket jacks held an AK-47 to the head of pocket tens and opened fire.
It was van Zijp’s fourth live tournament win of his career, and his most significant cash to date, easily surpassing his previous best score of €29,332 after beating Kees van Brugge, heads-up, to win a €600 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Breda Poker Series back in 2015.
Zijp also picks up a seat in the WPTDeepStacks finale during the WPT European Championships at Dusk till Dawn (DTD) where he said he would also take a punt at the Main Event.
Here are the final table results.
Final Table Results
1. Danny van Zijp – €110,000*
2. Jose Astima – €75,000
3. Paul van Oort – €53,000
4. Peter Jaksland – €40,000
5. Rico Roumen – €30,000
6. Cyril Mira – €23,000
7. Tal Sardal – €17,550
8. Cheng-Wei Yin – €13,550
9. Jean-Philippe Schoonbrood – €10,700
*Includes a seat in the WPTDS European Championship
In the event’s other major tournament, Alexandre Reard conquered a field of 124-entrants in the €2,200 High Roller, including beating mid-stakes WPT legend, Laurent Polito, in heads-up action. Reard finished 16th in the 2017 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event earning $340,000.
WPT Sponsor Matt DiBenedetto; Race Star to Appear at Rock n Roll Open
From Brussels to the land of Stars and Stripes, and Adam Pliska and the gang will sponsor the professional stock car race driver, Matt DiBenedetto, in his final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series event at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sun 18, Nov.
The deal comes about thanks to DiBenedetto’s relationship with Zynga Poker, who is one of the Italian-American’s many sponsors. Zynga Poker and the WPT are also partners with WPT branded tournaments available on the Zynga Poker platform. DiBenedetto will also make his WPT debut this year. The poker enthusiast will wear a Zynga Poker patch during the $3,500 buy-in WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open in Hollywood Nov 23 – 28.
The Five Diamond Final Table Moves to ARIA
Finally, the final table of the $10,000 buy-in WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic will be played out under the glare of the PokerGO Studio lights at the ARIA – a strange move considering the WPT’s owners OurGame International have a perfectly good Esports Studio at the Luxor.
Last year, Ryan Tosoc crushed the record field of 812-entrants to win the $1.9m first prize, 12-months after finishing runner-up to James Romero in the same event, earning $1.1m.
2017 @WPT Five Diamond WPC set the all time record for $10k entries at 812, but some changes were in order for 2018….
-more tables
-more reg windows
-worked with @SavagePoker on our pay/trny structure
-Final table live stream from @PokerGO Studio— Bellagio Poker Room (@BellagioPoker) November 9, 2018
