April 28 2012, Brett Collson

On Friday, the World Poker Tour made the short trek to North Florida for the debut of the televised WPT Jacksonville BestBet Open. The tour wrapped up at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida, earlier this week, allowing players a chance to play a pair of WPT events without traveling across the country.

This is the first major tournament held in the brand new BestBet Jacksonville complex and is open to anyone 18 years of age or older. Any player who busts on Day 1a will have the option of re-entering on Day 1b, a format that has become common around the World Poker Tour stops in recent seasons.

Day 1 began with 125 players putting up the $5,000 buy-in. Among the 62 players who survived the nine hour-long levels of play were former WPT champs Will Failla, James Dempsey, Jonathan Little and Taylor von Kriegenbergh, as well as Tony Dunst, Mike Sexton, and current WPT Player of the Year leader Joe Serock. They’ll all be chasing chip leader Darren Elias when play resumes on Day 2.

Florida native Daryll Fish had an action-packed day at the tables and finished among the frontrunners when the day came to a close. According to the WPT Live Updates Team, Fish and Jason Koon were seated together all day and had a prop bet on whether Koon could build his stack from 8,000 to 60,000 by the end of the day. Fish secured the $100 win (he gave Koon 5-to-1 odds) all by himself when he sent Koon packing in the final level.

After Fish doubled up with pocket jacks against Koon’s , Koon moved his remaining short stack in preflop and Fish and Fred Goldberg called. The two players checked down the board and Fish rolled over for a pair of eights for the win. Koon mucked his hand and hit the rail, losing his prop bet in the process.

Joining Koon on the rail on Day 1a were Hoyt Corkins, Keith Ferrera, Shannon Shorr, Matt Waxman, Matt Marafioti, Phil Collins, and WPT commentator Vince Van Patten. This is just the second WPT event Van Patten has played in his 10 years with the tour, but his tournament ended in Level 5 when he ran into an opponent’s pocket aces. Van Patten told WPT reporter Jess Welman that he doesn’t plan on firing another bullet on Day 1b:

Here’s a look at the chip leaders after Day 1a of the WPT Jacksonville bestbet Open:

Day 1b kicks off Saturday at 1200 EDT (1700 BST). The aforementioned players who busted on Friday can pony up another $5,000 and give it another whirl on Saturday. Stay tuned to PokerNews.com for daily updates from the World Poker Tour.

Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook today!

Follow Brett Collson on

No comments yet. Be the first to post one!

April 27 2012, Lee Davy

Day 2 of the PokerStars.com and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final has come to an end with Team PokerStars Pro Max Martinez sitting atop the chip count with a stack of 456,300. Martinez began Day 2 quickly growing his stack to join the plethora of players fighting for the higher ground. Then in the penultimate level of the day, disaster struck.

Martinez and Fabrice Soulier were involved in a 210,000-chip pot where Martinez was holding and Soulier held . The pot would have pushed Martinez right into contention, but a foul queen on the flop handed the pot to Soulier and left Martinez lamenting his luck with only 65,000 chips.

In the last level of the night, Martinez went on what can only be described as an almighty tear in which he grew his 65,000-chip stack to a sumptuous 456,300, climaxing in the elimination of Ivan Kudriavtcev after Kudriavtcev ran his pocket sevens into Martinez’ pocket tens.

But long before Martinez popped up on our radar, Day 2 began with a number of high-profile eliminations. Team PokerStars Pros Vanessa Selbst, Ville Wahlbeck and Victor Ramdin joined Kevin MacPhee, David Vamplew and Samuel Chartier out of the door. PokerStars qualifier Malte Moenning began the day ninth in chips and was the first player to eclipse Nick Yunis at the top with 220,000 chips.

Team PokerStars Pro Pius Heinz started to gather some momentum as did his teammate Angel Guillen, while at the other end of things Joe Cada and Daniel Negreanu exited stage left. Sam Trickett left the field after a series of unfortunate coolers, and as Level 11 began, the newly crowned “100,000 Super High Roller winner, Justin Bonomo took the chip lead after eliminating two players in a three-way all-in to take him to 242,000 in chips. Hanging onto the coat tails of the “1,600,000 man were the likes of David Sands, John Eames, Nick Yunis and Malte Moenning.

In Level 12, David “Doc” Sands was the first player to pass the summit of 300,000 chips. Also in Level 12, Eames was eliminated, as was former EPT champion Vladimir Geshkenbein. Then there was a clash involving Mohsin Charania and Nick Yunis that thrust Charania into the EPT Grand Final spotlight for the first time.

With the blinds at 800/1,600 and an ante of 200, both Nick Yunis and Mohsin Charania had a 143 big blind stack and 131 big blind stack respectively. You would have thought that the pair would have sailed into Day 3 without breaking sweat, but Yunis had other ideas. Ben Vinson raised to 3,500 in first position, Mohsin Charania three-bet to 8,000, also in early position, before Yunis cold-four bet for 18,000 in middle position. Vinson stepped aside, Charania five-bet, Yunis six-bet for everything, and Charania was wondering if somebody was going to wake him up and tell him that it was all a dream. Charania had the preflop nuts – – and Yunis had the dominated . Five community cards later and Charania was the new chip leader with 380,000 chips and Yunis was down, and a few hands later, out!

When you have a man with an aura like Phil Ivey, then you need to get him on your TV table. It’s just a shame that the man was eliminated in the very first hand that he played after the crew announced lights, camera and action!

Team PokerStars Pros Barry Greenstein and Humberto Brenes left the party and Brits Chris Brammer and Ben Vinson started to grow their chip stacks. Brammer doubled through Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri and Vinson just ground away on a table with Annette Obrestad and Mohsin Charania.

In the depths of the last level Dario Minieri, Liv Boeree, and Fabrice Soulier were eliminated and when the final count came in 130 players left to play poker on Day 3.

End of Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts

Day 3 action begins at 1200 CET (0300 PDT) and the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there to bring you all the action as the field heads toward the money bubble.

Follow PokerNews on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.

No comments yet. Be the first to post one!