Tournament Reports

Former European number one Ash Hussain became the inaugural Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Champion of Champions. He defeated a field of 93 players, all of whom had won GUKPT events in 2008 to claim their seats in the prestigious £75,000 invitation only tournament.

Poker gave Brent Roberts a chance to satisfy his love of traveling the world. He's played tournaments in places like Macau, Barcelona, the Bahamas, and Aruba. But it was right here that the 23-year-old from nearby Staten Island, New York made his biggest score when he won the $5,150 championship event of the WSOP Circuit tour at Harrah's Atlantic City. Victory brought him $280,040, a $10,000 buy-in to the 2009 WSOP main event, and the coveted gold-and-diamond trophy ring. He won by beating a strong table that contained several other pros.

The 2008 Winter Bayou Poker Challenge at Harrah's New Orleans began with a $200 buy-in no-limit hold 'em tournament held. The two-day event's 183 entrants generated $35,502 in prize money, and Kevin Cooper, a 31-year-old waiter who plays poker regularly at Harrah's, won $11,504 in his first-ever major poker tournament victory.
The tournament's top 18 finishers collected prize money. The nine-player final table played to completion on the second day. The top nine finishers included:

Cherokee Casino's Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge V featured 30 events over 11 days with buy-ins ranging from $120 - $3,150, and drew top players from across the country. Although hosting an event of this size is a daunting task, it did not slow Cherokee's future plans to brand under The Hard Rock venue and expand their capacity. When complete, the 412,548 square feet resort will include:

• 30,000 square feet of additional gaming room • 30,000 square feet of convention space
• A 2,500-seat multipurpose theater for concerts and sporting events

Foxwoods World Poker Finals (FWPF) attracted some of the biggest poker stars in the world, but in the end, it was two young men in their early twenties who took home the big checks. A six-player final table was whittled down to two in a little over five hours of play, then Jonathan Little, 23, of Pensacola Florida beat out Jonathan Jaffe, 21, of Enfield, Connecticut after five more hours of grueling competition.

Clonie Gowen, from Dallas TX, won the World Poker Open $5,000 main event, earning $183,224 plus a $10,000 seat in the WPT event at the Beau Rivage in January 2009 along with a gold and diamond WPO bracelet, when she outlasted the final table and defeated B. J. McBrayer, from Tuscaloosa AL, heads-up.

We've got the entire country covered this issue, with tournament results from California, Connecticut, Indiana, and the Gold Strike's World Poker Open, held way down south in Tunica, Mississippi. This tournament series began October 16 and runs through October 28, making it a 13-day affair. But it splits our editorial cut-off date, so we've brought you results from the first nine events in this issue, and the remainder of this tournament series' results will appear in our next issue.

Former Republic of Ireland soccer pro Tony Cascarino won the seventh leg of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT), outscoring a field of 175 players to win the first prize of £52,850 at the Grosvenor casino in Bolton and his first major poker event.

The 2008 Borgata Poker Open-World Poker Tour Championship event drew a field of 516 players, including Player-of-the-Year candidates John Phan and Eric Seidel. Big name poker pros such as David "The Dragon" Pham, Gavin Smith, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Roy Winston, Chad Brown, Kathy Liebert, Jon Juanda, Carlos Mortenson and Nam Le also showed up to play, along with Dennis Phillips, Ylon Schwartz, and Chino Rheem, all three "November Nine" participants for this year's WSOP event in November.

Commerce Casino's California State Poker Championship began on September 2 and ran through September 21-a total of 18 events-and Yevgeney Podolsky took the $1,500 no-limit hold 'em championship event. Podolsky survived a field of 484 players, winning $183,120 for his efforts. The championship event paid a total of $704,220 to in-the-money finishers. Results from the first ten events ran last issue, and results from Events No. 11-18 are in this one. There's always a tournament series in Southern California, or so it seems.