The guy on the back left is $1.2M dollars richer...
Let’s see,
half-man, half-amazing Freddy Deeb didn’t win his record-tying third WPT title.
Prahlad Friedman and his wife,
Dee Luong, a woman, didn’t final table. The guy who may be the
King of Customer Service in Ohio went out early in final table play. The loaded field of 37 produced one recognizable name when it got down to six. And what are we left with?
Tommy Vedes winning the
WPT Festa al Lago.
You might recognize Vedes from getting his Kings cracked by Steven Begleiter’s donkish A-Q play on last week’s episode of the 2009 WSOP Main Event. Vedes, who hails from Queens and wears poker’s version of Affliction clothing that Poker Battle stuff, has had a solid 2009, earning around $450,000 before the Festa final table. He’ll bank $1,218,225 for his first WPT win.
Jason Lavallee finished second for $795,150. Freddy Deeb finished fourth ($278,300) and King of Customer Service finished sixth ($168,970).
Get full payouts here.
Tagged as: Festa Al Lago, Poker News, Tommy Vedes, World Poker Tour
Everyone you'd care about in this photo has now been eliminated.
Pretty much everyone we listed yesterday in the “37 people left, field is loaded…” post busted from the
WPT Festa al Lago. What is left is a field of 11 mostly “mehs.” Looking at a potential strictly friends and family final table
TM.
Jason Lavallee ended the day as big stack with 4,063,000. He’s followed by half-man, half-amazing Freddy Deeb with 2,319,000. Also remaining is Kido Pham in fourth overall with 1,500,000.
Get full chip counts + payouts here.
Tagged as: Festa Al Lago, Jason Lavallee, Poker News, World Poker Tour
While not necessarily represented in this photo, the Festa al Lago is still loaded with big names.
Day 3 of the
WPT Festa al Lago wrapped short of the money with 37 total remaining.
Corwin Cole took the chip lead by the end of the day, stacked at 996,000.
But the bigger and completely manufactured story by us is: can a married couple make the same WPT final table for the first time?
Dee Luong, a woman, is among the big stacks with 771,500. She is married to Prahlad Friedman, who is among the short stacks with 188,000. While a long-shot from actually happening, if watching years of Lost has taught us anything, it’s that anything can happen.
Lots of big names remain, including Mark Seif (759,000), yesterday’s chip leader Jason Somerville (669,000), Dutch Boyd (616,500), half-man, half-amazing Freddy Deeb (588,000), Chris “Jesus” Ferguson (535,000), Matthew Stout (498,500), Brandon Cantu (414,000), Kido Pham (401,000), Dan Shak (398,000), Johnny “Cliff Josephy” Bax (385,000), Andy Bloch (320,000), Falcon Heene (310,000), Chau Giang (293,500), Lee Markholt-Watkinson (273,500), and Vivek Rajkumar (253,000). That’s pretty much the majority of the field.
Get full chip counts here.
Tagged as: Corwin Cole, Dee Leong, Festa Al Lago, prahlad friedman, World Poker Tour
Did you know that the town of Rugby, North Dakota is the geographical center of North America?
After registering a total of 275 by the end of level 8, creating a grand prize pool of we’re not sure yet, the WPT Festa al Lago finished Day 2 with about 100 remaining.
Some quote unquote young guns lead the way. Jason Somerville ended play with 557,000. He’s followed by Chad Batista with 425,000. Other notable big named big stacks include but are certainly not limited to Mark Seif (370,000), Chau Giang (350,000), Puffy Tom Dwan Steve Gross (345,000), Falcon Heene (277,000), and Dutch Boyd (260,000).
Get full chip counts here.
Tagged as: Festa Al Lago, Jason Somerville, Poker News, World Poker Tour
The WPT Festa al Lago has an interesting registration and blind structure that had many in the room like, wtf...
This year’s
WPT Festa al Lago took a different approach then most major tournaments. Instead of splitting the field into two Day 1’s, they decided to allow registration through about half of Day 2. You could register at any point up until the Day 2 cut-off and get the same 60,000 starting stack (so you’re not blinded off). As
BJ Nemeth wrote in his tourney recap:
“In retrospect, more than half the field would have been better off starting on Day 2 — only 48% of the field managed to build up a chip stack higher than they started with.”
We further agree with that assessment, as among those planning on starting on Day 2 is Andy Bloch, and you know he spent a week developing theorems and algorithms on when the optimum time to register for such a tournament structure would be. Let’s just put it like this, if we played professionally, and there was a tournament with a structure like the Festa al Lago, we’d let Bloch do all of the homework, call him up the day before the event begins, and be like, “Andy, buddy, pal, when do you think you’re registering…” (it’s just like high school).
Anyway, 195 of the initial 244 remain. As the headline indicates, Mike Matusow ended Day 1 as chip leader, stacked at 224,200. He’s followed by Mark Seif with 222,425. Other notable big stacks include but are certainly not limited to Phil Laak (185,850), Dutch Boyd (176,075), Chino Rheem (172,175), Jonathan Little (162,575), Jennifer Tilly, a woman (139,450), Falcon Heene (138,200), Lee Markholt-Watkinson (122,000), and Justin Bonomo (115,600).
Among those departed include Joe Sebok, the spectacularly-breasted J.C. Tran, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Antonio Esfandiari, Darrell “Deep” Dicken, and Daniel Negreanu.
Speaking of Negreanu, read his top WPT R.O.I. blog post here. Should ruffle some feathers.
Get full Festa chip counts here.
Tagged as: Festa Al Lago, Mark Seif, Mike Matusow, Poker News, World Poker Tour
Howard Lederer wins his first tournament in nearly two years.
Our Official Pick to Win ItTM Howard Lederer won the the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. event today at the 2009 Festa al Lago, beating Ralph Perry heads up and pocketing a cute $92,150. Only 19 players entered the event, including Eli Elezra, the Intense Stare of Scott Clements, Rod Pardey, Dan Shak, Jerry Buss, Andy Bloch, Michael Binger and David Singer.
While Lederer has been on a bit of a heater lately, making two final tables at the WSOP Europe, the win today was his first victory in nearly two years. A relieved Lederer went to Twitter afterwards, saying:
Whew, I got the win. Managed to hang on against a tough opponent. Feels good. First win in 20 months.
That win 20 months ago was the $100k buy-in event at the 2008 Aussie Millions against a field of 25.
Despite the win, Lederer still remains our Official Pick To Win It. Consider this his 2008 Canada Open Poker Championship. He’ll need a major win in an event with more players than a cheerleading squad before we look for a new “Official Pick to Win It.”
Tagged as: Festa Al Lago, Howard Lederer
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