Arizona State Poker Championship 2017
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The 2018 Arizona State Poker Championship was scheduled on August 10 to 14, with 3 starting flights and then 2 days of play to determine a champion. Things went well on Day 1a, with 553 entries and 90 advancing, and the prize pool reached to $553,000. Bad news for the players, because it means that the tournament ended without a top winner. Rellie Sigua, 38, took home $265,706; a $30,000 Rolex watch and was crowned the 2017 Arizona State Poker Champion with a pair of kings, jack high. Second place and third place finishers, Dylan.
WithArizona State Poker Championship 2020
WPT Choctaw
now behind it, the World Poker Tour is heading back to Los Angeles, California for one of the staple stops on the Main Tour that has been on the schedule since season one.The WPT Legends of Poker will run from August 25, 2017 to August 31, 2017. Once again, the Bicycle Hotel & Casino in Bell Gardens, CA, just a 15-minute drive from Downtown LA, will play host.
Preliminary events featuring a number of six-figure guarantees are already underway at The Bike. The WPT Legends of Poker Main Event’s first of three starting flights will kick off in approximately two weeks.
The Main Event features a $3,700 + $300 buy-in. The tournament also includes a re-entry format allowing players a single re-entry per starting flight.
Legendary WPT Legends winners
WPT Legends of Poker has been a constant on tour since the WPT’s first season with some true poker legends having won the title, including Doyle Brunson (Season III) and Dan Harrington (Season VI).
Last year, the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event drew 687 entries creating a $2,465,643 prize pool. The televised final table of six featured Benjamin Zamani, a World Series of Poker bracelet winner who was coming off a runner-up finish at the WPT Choctaw Championship Event.
Plucky Pacific Palisades, CA senior William Vo and San Mateo, CA’s Pat Lyons also made the final six.
Coming off a win in the 12th Annual Arizona State Poker Championship earlier in the month, Lyon’s went on to capture the WPT Legends of Poker title and a $615,346 first-place prize. Zamani finished runner-up again, securing enough points to take the lead in the WPT Player of the Year race. Zamani ultimately went on to win last season’s WPT Player of the Year title.
How to follow and watch the WPT Legends of Poker
Live coverage of the WPT Legends of Poker will be featured on the WPT website throughout the event. Plus, the Bicycle Hotel & Casino runs its own poker blog featuring coverage of all major events at the facility.
Television coverage of the final table will also air on Fox Sports Regional sometime in the near future. Coverage of the 2016 WPT Legends of Poker Main Event aired in April 2017.
The Bicycle Hotel & Casino
The Bicycle Hotel & Casino was founded in 1984 and plays host to one of the country’s largest poker rooms with 175 cash-game tables. The WPT Legends of Poker takes place in the attached Event Center which features another 50 poker tables during major events.
The facility underwent a major expansion in 2015 with the addition of a 99-room five-star hotel, further amenities, and an increased gaming footprint.
A little more information about the final six players at the €5,000 PokerStars Championship Prague Main Event (compiled by Jan Kores, Media Co-ordinator, and team):
Seat 1: Harry Lodge (United Kingdom) -- 1.23 million (15 BBs)
Harry Lodge is a 23-year-old professional poker player from Haywards Heath, in the UK. Lodge made his mark on the PokerStars Festival London earlier this year, finishing second in the £2,000 High Roller for £36,150. But his top performance came a few months later at the summer World Series of Poker where Lodge earned a $344,888 third-place prize in the $888 Crazy Eights event.
Lodge has earned a number of big scores online as well, including on PokerStars where he plays as 'Iamapoopie.' His best online cash was $88,545 for a runner-up finish in the 2016 TCOOP-27 $215 NL Hold'em Event.
Lodge was on the verge of elimination several times during Day 4. He was short-stacking for the most of the day but all the key clashes went his way, and he survived to be the short stack to start play today.
Seat 2: Kalidou Sow (France) -- 8.135 million (102 BBs)
Frenchman Kalidou Sow was 13th of 15 entering yesterday's penultimate day, but a rush of big hands and knockouts helped catapult him to the top of the counts heading into today's finale.
The 37-year-old has already has a number of decent live results, including a career-best score of €72,000 for third place in the France Poker Series (FPS) Season 5 Main Event in Enghien-les-Bains. Sow has three career wins as well, including taking down the 2016 Belgian Poker Challenge Namur High Roller for €41,460 as well as the 2016 Barrière Poker Tour Toulouse Main Event for €32,100.
Seat 3: Michal Mrakes (Czech Republic) -- 5.01 million (63 BBs)
The 31-year-old Czech player Michael Mrakes has already earned headlines in this PSC Prague Main Event. Mrakes has been near or at the top of leader board all week, including ending Days 1 and 4 with the chip lead, and he enters today's finale with the third-largest stack among the final six.
It was while living in Sydney, Australia that Mrakes was introduced to poker, and five years ago he returned home to Prague to pursue a career as a pro. This year has been the best yet for Mrakes, highlighted by a win in the €1,100 partypoker MILLION event in Rozvadov for a €200,000 payday.
Wherever he finishes today he'll top the $1 million mark in lifetime earnings with more than half of that picked up in 2017 alone.
Seat 4: Gabriele Lepore (Italy) -- 1.815 million (23 BBs)
Gabriele Lepore enters today fourth in chips and below the average after managing to nurse a short stack successfully throughout Day 5 to join the final six. It was about a decade ago that Lepore turned a hobby into a profession, becoming a full-time player specializing in online multi-table tournaments and sit & gos.
He's no stranger to the live circuit, either, currently ranking 43rd on the Italian all-time money list with more than $710,000 in live cashes. Among the 34-year-old's live scores are three EPT Main Event cashes, a victory in the La Notte Del Poker €2,000 Main Event in late 2012 worth €104,000, another win in the WPT National €1,650 Event, banking €92,000, and a runner-up finish in the EPT6 Snowfest €1,000 Event for a €40,000 payday.
Seat 5: Colin Robinson (United States) -- 1.425 million (18 BBs)
Colin Robinson is a 22-year-old business marketing student from Phoenix, Arizona, currently studying at Arizona State University in Tempe. He's only been playing poker for two-and-a-half years, having graduated quickly from home games with friends and other video and strategy games.
This is Robinson's second poker trip to Prague after cashing in last year's Eureka High Roller here in the Czech capital. He's guaranteed today to more than double his live tournament earnings of just over $70,000. So far, he's racked up just over $70,000 in cashes. His previous best result was $34,800 for a first place in a 2016 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open side event.
Seat 6: Jason 'jdtjpoker' Wheeler (United States) -- 8.1 million (101 BBs)
Jason Wheeler is a poker veteran who has been around for a decade. The 40-year-old American pro has racked up nearly $8 million in online tournament winnings and has over $3 million in live cashes.
From Chicago, Illinois, Wheeler's been a familiar face on the European live poker circuit for almost a decade, having relocated to Amsterdam years ago. Wheeler's career-best result dates back to 2009 when he fell just shy of winning a WSOP bracelet, finishing second in the $1,500 NL Hold'em event for $418,122. Today marks his debut at a PokerStars main tour Main Event final table, with the previous deepest run coming at the EPT8 Grand Final (18th for €40,000).
Arizona State Poker Championship 2017 Payouts
Wheeler envisioned his success here in the Main Event as he described at the end of Day 4: 'I feel amazing. Last week, I had a dream. I was at the final table of this tournament. This is unusual, I've never dreamt about poker before. I told my dream to my friend Ludovic Geilich and he reached two final tables this week. Now I start thinking that the dream could become true for me.'
Prolific on both live and online felt, Wheeler's main forte has been the PokerStars $1,050 Super Tuesday. Playing as 'jdtjpoker,' he's conquered the prestigious weekly event four times in his career. His other accolades from the virtual realm include a WCOOP bracelet as well as SCOOP $25k High Roller final table.