Tag Archives: 2016 WPO

Event 7 Flight E: Ekinci Leads as Players Bag and Tag

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 14: 1,200/2,400 with a 400 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 30 of 161

Onder Ekinci

The clock is paused with 10 minutes remaining in Level 14 and tournament staff is wrapping Flight E action. Action began at 11am with a field of 161 entries and the clock currently shows 30 remaining. Onder Ekinci and his 300,000 chips will go down as the chip leader following a double knockout late, but Jeff Boulais and Steve Pellingra will bag monsters as well.

Boulais topped the counts following the second break while Pellingra ran into his stack after coming out on the winning end of a quads versus fullhouse battle. Both players claim over 250,000 chips and will be heading to Day 2 with a top 10 stacks — at least for now.

Jeff Boulias
Steve Pellingra

A ton of notables are likely to advance from the Flight E field including reigning defending Winter Poker Open Championship winner John Templeton, John Holley, Vitor Coelho, Charlemagne Benjamin and David Tuthill.

Complete chip counts will be posted within the hour.

Event 7 Flight E: Late Ekinci Goes Big

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 14: 1,200/2,400 with a 400 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 30 of 161

Onder Ekinci

With only a few minutes left in the night, Onder Ekinci had all his chips in the middle and in danger of going out. He doubled up in that hand with Ac8s versus the KcQc of Scott Efron and didn’t stop there.

On one of the last hands of the evening, he found AhAd with both Dmitry Agrachov and Event 1 champ Rob Manjura all-in. It was a cooler for Manjura with QcQd and Agrachov was crushed with As2d. The board ran out Js5h2h7s3s to send the double KO/Flight E chip leading pot to Ekinci.

Event 7 Flight E: Fullhouse Versus Quads; Pellingra Wins Against Agrachov

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 13: 1,000/2,000 with a 300 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 35 of 161

Steve Pellingra

Steve Pellingra is the Flight E chip leader with a stack of 295,500 chips following a huge confrontation with previous pace setter Dimitry Agrachov. The board laid 7c5d3h5hTs. Pellingra was all in for 95,500 and Dimitry Agrachov, who was in for a rude awakening, had called.

Agrachov: 3s3c for a fullhouse
Pellingra: 5s5c for quads
Third player in the hand: 8x8x for two pair

Agrachov’s boat was second best and Pellingra scooped a pot worth nearly 300,000. Pellingra is now your chip leader with under an hour remaining in the day. Agrachov still has chips, but he’s far from the lead.

Event 7 Flight E: Big Stacks on Break

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
End of Level 12: 800/1,600 with a 200 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 47 of 161

Dimitry Agrachov

Players are in the midst of their final 15-mintue break of the night. There are a  lot of stacks building, but it appears Dimitry Agrachov and Vitor Coelho have two of the biggest.

Agrachov recently took a nice pot holding ace-king on a king-high board and getting a few streets of value. Coelho, meanwhile, has been stacking chips steadily throughout the day.

Vitor Coelho

 

Event 7 Flight E: Onder Ekinci Eyes Another Re-Entry Run

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 11: 600/1,200 with a 200 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 54 of 161

Onder Ekinci

Onder Ekinci already made his way through a re-entry field this week finishing 10th in the Winter Poker Open $150 on Wednesday for just over $770. With that deep run behind him, he’s back in action at a higher pricepoint and looking for another score.

Ekinci recently got some help growing his stack when his Ah9d outdrew the AxQx of an all-in opponent preflop. Ekinci spiked the 9h on the flop and took a medium-sized pot.

His stack now flirts with the 100,000 mark.

Event 7 Flight E: Field Trimming Toward the End of Play

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 11: 600/1,200 with a 200 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 59 of 161

The clock shows 59 players remaining from 161 starting and there’s a steady stream to the rail toward the end of Flight E. Players are set to log just three more levels before those still alive bag and tag set to return for Day 2 tomorrow at noon.

The big turnout drew many notables and two of those still in include a pair of Johns in Holley and Templeton.

John Holley
John Templeton

John Holley is a five-time World Series of Poker Circuit gold ring winner while John Templeton is the defending champion in the Winter Poker Open Championship.

Event 7 Flight E: Team Member Mike Laake Running Pure

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 10: 500/1,000 with a 100 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 70 of 161

Mike Laake

It’s unclear how the action went down, but what is clear is that Seminole Hard Rock Poker team member Mike Laake hit a nice river to snag a pot and bust an opponent following three-way action.

Laake: AhQh
Opponent 1: 7h7d
Opponent 2: AsKs

Board: 8h6h5d8sQd

The money got in before the river and Laake hit one of his outs when the Qd gave him a pair. Opponent 1 busted while Opponent 2 shipped a handful of chips Laake’s way.

The pot put Laake at about 80,000 chips.

Event 7 Flight E: Big Turnout Smashes Guarantee

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 400/800 with a 100 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 85 of 161

Registration is closed and the Flight E attendance figure is official. The fifth of six starting days in the Winter Poker Open $570 drew 161 entries helping smash the event’s $200,000 guarantee. In all, the field sits at 499 through five flights with an unofficial prize pool of $249,500.

Flight F rounds out play tonight at 6pm and is expected to push the prize pool over $300,000.

Here’s an up-to-date tournament breakdown:

FlightEntriesAdvanced
A7614
B7612
C8015
D10621
E161TBD
FTonight @ 6pm
Totals49962

 

Event 7 Flight E: Boulais Dominating with 175K; Benjamin at 115K

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 400/800 with a 100 ante
Entries: 161

Joe Boulais

Joe Boulais has put a hurt on the Flight E field over the first eight levels of play and it seemed the whole tournament stopped to take a look at his stack over break. Boulais somehow managed to turned his 20,000-chip holdings into 175,000 over the early portions of play.

“Is that real?” one player joked walking by the table admiring Boulais’ tower of gray 5,000 chips.

Indeed, it was real. Through yesterday’s Flight D, a total of 62 players have bagged. Boulais’ Flight E stack at the beginning of Level 9 would be good enough to crack the top 10 of those have advanced thus far and he still has six levels to play.

Joining Boulais at the top of the counts is Hollywood regular Charlemagne Benjamin. Despite impressive holdings of 115,000 chips, Benjamin’s stack is 75 big blinds shy of Boulais whose stack is good for 218 big blinds.

Charlemagne Benjamin

Tournament staff is still finalizing the Flight E attendance sum and we’ll provide the official numbers as soon as they’re available.

Event 7 Flight E: Second Break of the Day Marks the End of Registration

$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600 with a 100 ante
Entries: 157

The second break of the day of the is just moments away and after it runs out registration in Flight E will be done. The tournament has already bested its $200,000 guarantee, but we’ll get an idea of exactly where it’s at heading to tonight’s final flight after staff finalizes today’s figure.