This month I had the pleasure of chatting with Craig Kaufman, the tournament director at Hustler Casino in Gardena, Calif. Though he’s relatively new to Hustler, he’s a Los Angeles casino veteran with decades of experience, even trying his hand at horse-handicapping tournaments.
Kaufman and his five-person team appreciate there being plenty of choices for players in Los Angeles. They make every effort to provide a great tournament experience at a reasonable buy-in level. Hustler also hosts nightly guaranteed tournaments Sunday through Thursday with buy-ins around $125 (some with rebuys).
The poker room recently concluded its Liz Flynt Fall Classic, which consisted of 10 events, all with buy-ins of no more than $300. It boasted total guarantees of more than $700,000. The $300 final event guaranteed a $250,000 prize pool (the final prize pool was almost $270K) and first place was $75,000, which Derek Gregory won.
Along with new-and-improved structures, there were some other unique features to this series. There was a Turbo Twist, which had a turbo structure until the final two tables when the levels went to 40 minutes. A couple of the events featured “conditional rebuys.” This allowed one rebuy, but only when a player’s chipstack was below a certain point. For the largest guarantees, the top-three chipleaders each Day 1 were paid.
Next up for the Hustler was the Larry Flynt Holiday Poker Classic, which began Nov. 26 and again had reasonable buy-ins up to $200. The unique event of this series is Event 8, the $10,000 guarantee Top Heavy no-limit tournament on Dec. 8. This is a $150 buy-in with one $100 rebuy. The big twist is regardless of the number of entrants only the top four places pay; 50 percent to first, 25 percent to second, 15 percent to third and 10 percent to fourth. To keep informed on Hustler’s happenings follow the casino on Twitter at @HustlerCasinoLA and for tournament info be sure to check our Where to Play pages.
— Dave Palm is Ante Up’s Los Angeles Ambassador. You can email him at LA.AnteUp@gmail.com.
Liz Flynt’s Fall Poker Classic, Hustler Casino
Event 1 • $150 NLHE
Entries: 82 • Pool: $20,215
1. Massoud Eskandari, $7,300
2. Stuart Kinzey, $3,800
3. Robert Pigg, $2,450
4. Collen Pagatpatan, $1,900
5. Joesph Weinberger, $1,500
6. Phuoc Nguyen, $1,200
7. Congzweng Wu, $950
8. Babak Katuzian, $700
9. Larry Vance, $415
Event 2 • $200 re-entry
Entries: 1,448 • Pool: $231K
1. Johnny Ngo, $53,000
2. Anas Benohod, $27,500
3. Thai Tran, $17,000
4. Andrei Suciu, $12,000
5. Brian Manalang, $9,500
6. Edwin Pairavi, $7,000
7. Galit Malkin, $5,500
8. Juan Citores, $3,625
9. Nika Xentaras, $2,600
10. Lek Bunyaananta, $2,023
Event 3 • $125 NLHE
Entries: 63 • Pool: $6,300
1. Ahmad Hooshmand, $2,250
2. Marc Lebowitz, $1,250
3. Bruce Buffer, $950
4. Taylor Kasch, $750
5. Haiau Han, $525
6. Rob Neuman, $375
7. Jerry Wiley, $200
Event 4 • $165 bounty
Entries: 99 • Pool: $20,647
1. John Apikian, $5,200
2. Marla Schwartz, $3,050
3. James Kim, $2,050
4. Mike Christiansen, $1,400
5. Ross Gruber, $1,000
6. Stacee Euans, $800
7. Mark Jun, $700
8. Haiau Han, $600
9. Chris Gorden, $500
10. Shahen Martirosian, $397
Event 5 $150 Turbo
Entries: 81 • Pool: $20K
1. Leonard Kramer, $7,500
2. Jeffrey Lee, $4,000
3. Valeri Breiman, $2,500
4. Bret Gross, $1,600
5. Nicholas Stiles, $1,250
6. Souren Chanian, $1,000
7. Robert Glass, $750
8. Ken Saclo, $500
9. Danny Dang, $300
Event 6 • $250 NLHE
Entries: 323 • Pool: $100K
1. Danny Geyser, $30,900
2. Ervin Villagran, $16,175
3. Yuriy Kocherga, $9,675
4. Chan Vu, $7,125
5. Robert Durant, $5,150
6. Jason Gross, $4,430
7. Daniel Strauss, $3,450
8. Craig Schauer, $2,500
9. Henrik Antanesian, $2,075
10. Walter Alexander, $1,500
Event 7 • $125 NLHE
Entries: 63 • Pool: $6,300
1. Anthony West, $2,250
2. Alex Hartzler, $1,250
3. Derek Chapin, $950
4. Michael Werndle, $750
5. William Vo, $525
6. Carlo Poledrelli, $375
7. Robert Glass, $200
Event 8 $150 NLHE
Entries: 535 • Pool: $100K
1. Ilce Pandeleski, $30,000
2. Stuart Pfeifer, $15,000
3. Yaacov Haviv, $7,300
4. Neil Ho, $5,700
5. Nathan Tsuchiya, $4,600
6. Osmin Dardon, $3,500
7. Cesar Romero, $2,500
8. Andy Taylor, $2,000
9. Kenneth Brown, $1,650
10. Hector Marquez, $1,350
Event 9 • $100 NLHE
Entries: 34 • Pool: $7,850
1. Mans Montgomery, $3,000
2. Aazam Yashari, $1,800
3. Chris Ught, $1,200
4. Dmitri Williams, $900
5. James Henesy, $650
6. Chong Allen, $300
$300 Main Event
Entries: 1,048 • Pool: $269K
1. Derek Gregory, $75,000
2. Jorge Walker, $32,000
3. Patrick Sullivan, $20,000
4. David Pham, $15,500
5. Brian Yoon, $12,500
6. Joseph Choueiri, $10,000
7. Jason Yeo, $7,900
8. Ricky Markowitz, $6,490
9. Sarah Tolagson, $5,000
10. Johnny Ngo, $2,500
