This Week in Poker: December 16 – 22

This Week in Poker
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  • PG News December 23, 2015
  • 5 Minutes Read

In the PokerGuru feature ‘This Week in Poker’ we bring to you the weekly round up of the biggest online scores by Indian MTT players along with the top stories from both the live and online poker circuit.

Here are this week`s top stories

Another week in the world of poker saw action in full swing at the international live felts with big tours wrapping up their respective year-end finales. APT 2015 Finale in Manila crowned Joven Huerto as the Main Event champion but Indians too ended the series on a winning note with Kunal Patni and Paawan Bansal making runner up finishes in separate side events. The biggest star at the series was Sam Razavi who topped the POY leaderboard for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year to further extend what already seems like an impossible record to break.

The other major stops at EPT Prague and WPT Las Vegas too closed out the year in style. Another important piece of news was the announcement of the 2016 WSOP dates by the organizers who have locked in May 31-July 18 for the 47th annual running of the series.

While the action is bound to slow down in the upcoming holiday season, the new year promises a lot of action with Indian representation all but guaranteed in atleast three major stops next month i.e. WPT National Philippines, Macau Millions and the Aussie Millions.

Back home, the IPC announced that its new season will kick off from Feb 24-28, some two weeks after the previously announced dates. While the official schedule is yet to be disclosed, players can look forward to the same soon and Spartan Poker will continue to host online satellites to the series.

Coming to our Online Railbird Report, the weekly scorecard carries some big scores. After a long time we have Phanindra ‘terabyte11’ Akkina topping the charts and he is our ‘PokerGuru Star of the Week’ just barely edging past Rohit ‘buzzzbeee85’ Mariwalla in cashes.

The weekly recap also has news of the uncertain future for Sri Lankan casinos, the launch of PokerStars’ new sports betting site BetStars and Daniel Negreanu taking down Season 2 of the PokerStars Shark Cage.

 

Online Railbird

Phanindra ‘terabyte11’ Akkina tops the weekly charts with his 1st place finish in the PokerStars ‘$1.10+R NL Hold’em [3x-Turbo], $35K GTD’ for $6,578 and he is our ‘PokerGuru Star of the Week’.

A close second is Rohit ‘buzzzbeee85’ Mariwalla who won $6,208.80 for 4th place in the PokerStars ‘$215 Weekly Turbo NLHE, $70K GTD’.

Other notable scores –

Sahil ‘$limShady19’ Chutani won $1,919.00 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$11 NL Hold’em [1R1A], $10K GTD’

‘dynamicnag’ won $1,567.50 for 7th place in the PokerStars ‘The Hot $55 [Turbo], $40K GTD’.

Alok ‘1darkmatter1’ Ranjan won $1,449.12 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$2.70 NL Hold’em [Turbo, Knockout], $10K GTD’.

With the holiday season around the corner, there are some great promotions up for the taking for online players. Spartan Poker has come out with an exciting line-up of offers to to entice even the most demanding player. From ₹200K in weekly cash bombs, a juicy 100% deposit bonus upto ₹100K and an innovative Omaha themed promotion, there is something for everyone and to top it all, there are no TDS worries on any winnings. Log onto Spartan Poker now to check out these festive promotions.

 

Asian Poker Tour Finale 2015 Recap

Local player Joven Huerto outlasted a field of 169 entries to win the Asian Poker Tour Finale 2015 Main Event title along with the winners purse of P1,927,000.

Joven Huerto
Joven Huerto

Read the complete story here.

Team India had a good run in the Main Event with two players – Kunal Patni and Paawan Bansal making Day 3 in the event. Bansal went out a few places short of the money while Patni made a 10th place finish for P197,000, missing the final table by two places. Both Patni and Bansal went on to make runner up finishes in separate side events to cap off the series. Patni followed up on his 10th place finish in the Main Event by making it on the final table in Event 16: P22,000 NLH Freezeout, but missed out on the title yet again. He finished runner-up to local player Gie Angelo Reyes and took home P150,300 in prize money.

Running alongside the Main Event was the final day of the Monster Stack event. A total of 80 entries were recorded with ten places getting a payout. India`s Paawan Bansal was on the hunt for his second title of the series but Korea’s SJ Kim defeated him in the heads-up match to claim the trophy and the P465,500 first place cash prize. Bansal who made a heads-up deal, collected P385,000 in prize money!

The biggest story at the series was Sam Razavi become the Quadruple Crown APT POY Champion. Razavi came into the Season finale edition in Manila as the front-runner, and six side-event cashes (five POY events) later, won the POY race by a comfortable margin over Japan`s Iori Yogo who finished runner-up with 2,584 points from six titles and 22 cashes.

Sam Razavi
Sam Razavi

 

European Poker Tour Prague Recap

Kenny ‘kenny05’ Smaron Wins €10,300 High Roller

The €10,300 High Roller attracted 315 players, creating an €3,150,000 prize pool and it was Kenny “kenny05” Smaron who came out on top to win the title along with the €595,500 first-place prize.

Kenny Smaron
Kenny Smaron

 

Hossein Ensan Wins EPT Prague €5,300 Main Event

Germany`s Hossein Ensan bested a field of 1,044 entries to win the EPT Prague €5,300 Main Event for a payday of €754,510. This was Ensan`s third EPT Main Event final table appearance having finished third and sixth in his previous attempts, and he finally went the distance this time around.

Hossein Ensan
Hossein Ensan

India too saw a sizeable representation at the series with several players joining the action at the year-end stop. New Delhi based Satchit Kapur made the deepest run in the Main Event from the team, but fell short of the money with an early dismissal on Day 3.

Read the complete story here.

 

World Poker Tour Recap

Kevin “1sickdisease” Eyster Wins WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

Kevin “1sickdisease” Eyster topped 639 entries at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, winning a career-best $1,587,382 in prize money. This was also the second largest field in the tournament’s 14-year history and with this win, Eyster now has over $ 4 Million in tournament cashes!

Kevin Eyster
Kevin Eyster

Read the complete story here.

 

Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz Wins WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas

Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz outlasted the 45-player field at the $100,000 WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas to win the top-prize of $1,589,219, along with a Hublot watch, and an Aurae Solid Gold MasterCard preloaded with $10,000.

Fedor Holz
Fedor Holz

Read the complete story here.

 

WSOP 2016 to be Held from May 31 to July 18

The World Series of Poker (WSOP), world’s longest-running, richest and most prestigious tournament series will be entering its 47th year in 2016 and is set to return from May 31 to July 18, 2016 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. On Friday WSOP came out with its grand plans in the coming year and though the complete schedule has not yet been revealed, tournament officials confirmed the second running of the $565 buy-in “Colossus” poker tournament, which will feature a $7 million guaranteed prize pool (up from $5 million last year), two additional entry flights and a guaranteed first-place prize of $1 million.

Some of the popular events which will make a return next year include the Millionaire Maker, the Monster Stack, the charity event Little One for ONE DROP that benefits those in Third World countries with clean water supplies, and the Ladies event. The highlight of the schedule, however, remains the $10,000 Main Event, which is slated to run over ten consecutive days from July 9-July 18, 2016 and will feature three starting flights. The full schedule is expected to be released sometime in January or February.

Read the complete story here.

 

Daniel Negreanu Wins PokerStars Shark Cage Season 2

Season 2 of the PokerStars Shark Cage hit the floor in Sep this year and with a star studded line up that had the world`s best pros making the final table i.e. Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari, Maria Ho, Andew Akkari and Jennifer Shahade – we saw one of the most glittering final tables in recent times.

An exhilarating heads-up was all but guaranteed and it couldn`t get better with Daniel Negreanu facing off Phil Ivey heads-up for the first time ever on television. Negreanu started the final table in the chip lead with 3.2 million vs Ivey`s 2.8 million and it was anybody`s game till the last hand. On the final hand, Negreanu flopped a set and Ivey moved all-in on the turn with a pair and a straight draw, Negreanu called and dodged a six (Ivey`s straight draw) on the river to win the second edition of the PokerStars Shark Cage for $966,000.

Daniel Negreanu
Daniel Negreanu

Read the complete story here.

 

Sri Lanka Casinos Face Uncertain Future As Government Hikes Taxes

The change of guard in the Sri Lankan government brought bad news for the island country’s casinos. The new government under President Maithripala Sirisena, which came to power in Jan this year, pushed Sri Lanka’s casinos back to the wall by announcing a one-time special tax of 1 billion Sri Lankan Rupees (around US $7 million) in the 2016 interim budget. The government also hiked the annual gaming fee to Sri Lankan Rupees 400 million (around US$2.7 million) in the final budget, a 200% hike from the existing levy of Sri Lankan Rupees 200 million. The bad news for the casinos doesn`t end here; as part of its effort to simplify the country’s taxation process, the government has also proposed to apply one of only two tax rates – 15% or 30% on businesses, with betting and gaming subject to the higher rate. This apparently seems to be a boost for the country’s casinos since betting and gaming were previously subject to a 40% income tax, but the government also plans to impose an additional surtax of 25% of income tax liability on betting and gaming profits.

Read the complete story here.

 

PokerStars Launches Sports Betting Site BetStars

PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site, recently launched its online sports betting site named BetStars. A product of the Amaya Inc. family, BetStars is available is select countries and available on desktop, mobile and tablet, with dedicated iOS and Android Apps. In a note sent to the media on December 18, the online poker company explained that though BetStars will be initially available only in a limited number of jurisdictions on the domains www.BetStars.com, www.BetStars.eu, and www.BetStars.uk, it has huge expansion plans for the coming days.

 

And that ends this edition of our weekly report. Do stay tuned same time next week for all the updates from the world of poker.

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