Three yarns from the World Series of Poker including a repeat win in Cherokee for Jacob Bazeley, a success in Planet Hollywood for Travis Dorsey, and eight rings in two years for one of Trinidad’s finest.
A quick little hop, skip and jump of an article you can read while flossing the chia seeds out of your molars.
The express train that is the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) recently held events at Harrah’s Cherokee and Planet Hollywood Las Vegas.
Let’s take a look at who ended up eating battered cod, and who left with nothing but a bag of chips.
Jacob Bazeley Wins $1,700 WSOPC Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee
Jacob Bazeley is one of those names you associate with being a boss yet to win a major tournament, but he does like winning big chunks of change.
Harrah’s Cherokee is a case in point.
In 2014, Bazeley broke the back of a 797-entrant field to win the $239,096 first prize in the Harrah’s Cherokee WSOPC Main Event, and this week he did it again.
Bazeley crumbled the resistance of a much larger 1,127-entrant field to win the $311,616 first prize after winning a pistachio nutshell in the ashtray heads-up confrontation with the World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, Kyle Cartwright.
The victory is Bazeley’s fifth of his career and his first since winning the 766-entrant $3,500 Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open for $568,687 taking his total lifetime earnings up to $4.3m.
Bazeley began heads-up with a big lead, but Cartwright doubled up several times to make a fist of things before Bazeley’s pocket tens won the all-important flip against Cartwright’s AQ.
Final Table Results
1. Jacob Bazeley – $311,616
2. Kyle Cartwright – $192,459
3. Toby Boas – $143,012
4. Ian Holt – $107,567
5. Ranjuan Chaitib – $81,904
6. Virgil Beddingfield – $63,106
7. Kenneth Baime – $49,190
8. James Striker – $38,775
9. David Shaw – $30,904
Three other maestros who picked a pocket or two in this one were the librarian like Allen Kessler (12th), the WSOP bracelet winner, Alex Ziskin (17th) and runner-up in the opening event of this series, Irene Carey (30th).
Travis Dorsey Wins Planet Hollywood Main Event
From Cherokee to Las Vegas and Travis Dorsey trampled on top of the temples of 518-entrants in the $1,700 Main Event in Planet Hollywood.
It’s the third time that Dorsey has won a gold ring, the other two coming in a 2015 WSOPC event at Harrah’s in New Orleans where he ploughed through fields of 235 and 300-entrants in £365 and $580 buy-in events, respectively.
And what a final table.
World Poker Tour (WPT) Champions Club members Ryan Tosoc and Daniel Strelitz were sitting on the beach pier like seats as was the WSOP bracelet winner Raphael Lebron, and two quality stalwarts in Timothy Reilly and Brent Roberts.
Dorsey had to get through Tosoc in the heads-up phase. He began with a 9.5m v 6.1m chip lead. He never lost it. AJ beat KJ in the final hand of the competition to grant Dorsey the best score of his career.
Here are the final table results:
Final Table Results
1. Travis Dorsey – $168,722
2. Ryan Tosoc – $104,319
3. Daniel Strelitz – $76,209
4. Zinan Xu – $56,496
5. Jared Griener – $42,487
6. Tim Reilly – $32,411
7. Jody Fayant – $25,073
8. Brent Roberts – $19,674
9. Rafael Lebron – $15,656
Three more players who went deeper than an epidural was the double bracelet winner, Barry Shulman (12th), multiple gold ring winner Eric Blair (14th) and the former WPTDeepStacks Main Event winner Jaspal Brar (17th).
Martin Ryan Wins 8 Gold Rings in Two-Years
Finally, Martin Ryan picked up his eighth gold ring in the past two years after topping the 1,166-entrant $400 Monster Stack event at the Harrah’s Cherokee event for $70,226.
The 57-year-old from Trinidad & Tobago now ties with Chris Reslock in seventh place in the WSOPC Gold Ring Rankings (Valentin Vornicu leads with 12).
Ryan’s other wins have come in Choctaw, Coconut Creek, West Palm Beach, The Bike and the beautiful holiday island of St Maarten.
Thanks to Chad Holloway for the scoop on this one.
