Every year poker players worldwide flock to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas each one eager to compete and hopefully triumph at the grandest stage of all. With the series now approaching its midway mark, players have already flooded sin city however their attentions aren’t just focused on the WSOP.
Running simultaneous are festivals hosted at other venues such as the Wynn Summer Classic, the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT), and the Goliath Phamous Poker Series. These events, and others like it, attract large fields as they offer lower buy-in tournaments than the WSOP matched with highly lucrative guarantees.
Last night, an Asian player topped one of those juicy events. Hong Kong player Vincent Kwun Li claimed the $1,100 buy-in No Limit Hold’em 1M GTD of the Wynn Summer Classic. The event drew in a record 2,427 field, driving the prize pool to an impressive US$2,401,274. At heads up, Li and Australia’s Dominic Coombe struck a deal that awarded Li the victory along with his first six-figure payout of US$280,594. For Coombe, he too earned the largest score of his live tournament career totaling US$266,639. Below are the final table payouts:
Final Table Payouts
Prize pool: US$2,401,274 – Buyin: US$1,100 – ITM: 251
1st Vincent Kwun Li – Hong Kong – US$280,594
2nd Dominic Coombe – Australia – US$266,639
3rd Thomas Blovin – Belgium – US$149,961
4th Ivn Zhechev – Bulgaria – US$106,810
5th Sean Chen – USA – US$78,943
6th Ian O’Hara – USA – US$60,632
7th Jeremy Baldisseri – Luxembourg – US$48,506
8th Upeshka Desilva – USA – US$39,922
9th Vincent Newland – USA – US$33,576
In addition to Li, other Asians running deep were Kitty Kuo, Phachara Wongwichit, Henry Wang, and Yosuke Sekiya.
Other low buy-in festivals
Another festival recently drawing a monstrous field was the MSPT Deepstack Championship Poker Series ongoing at the Venetian. Though their guarantees are lower than the Wynn Summer Classic, they did host a $3.5M GTD No Limit Hold’em event for a buy-in of just US$1,100. This event saw a march of 4,411 entries to bring the pot up to US$4,300,725. American player David Levine cleared nearly US$500K for his victory.
At the Goliath Phamous Poker Series held in Planet Hollywood, the US$600 buy-in 1M GTD event saw 2,238 take to the felt to surpass the guarantee by US$100K. USA’s Raymond Curran championed the event for US$143,738. UK’s Tom Hall finished 2nd, German pro Marvin Rettenmaier took 4th, and down the payout rung were Asian players Chris Chong (29th), Victor Chong (180th), Natalie Teh (208th), and Vincent Li (216th).
Towards the end of the month and into July, these festivals will all be running more low buy-in tournaments with hefty guarantees from 1M and up. They will likely attract huge fields with the WSOP still running.
Article by Tricia David
