Steven Constantino, after a chop, captured the Daytona Beach Kennel Club Poker Room’s Blizzard Tournament, a $50K guarantee event that ran Jan. 21-27. With pre-qualifying events, the entries were 1,022 with a prize pool of $81,760.
The tournament featured five Day 1s and played down to 27 players on the final day, when Constantino earned $19,149.
DBKC’s Amanda Alvarez said, “The players really seemed to like this structure. With money being so tight, the customers seemed to appreciate the low buy-in ($100) with such a good guaranteed prize pool. We are going to do more events like this.”
Marc Davis was second ($11,446) and Donald Tenney came in third ($7,726).
BESTBET $50K: The Jacksonville bestbet poker room’s January $50K guarantee drew 708 players for a $120,530 prize pool, crushing the guarantee. The top 80 players made the money and the final hand ended 10 hours later with Chris Nall earning $15K.
“Extremely grueling, but well worth it in the end,” Nall said of his experience afterward. He’s a bestbet regular, originally from Louisville, who lives in Jacksonville Beach. He got heads-up with Tad Woods, a Savannah, Ga., player who had come in third at last spring’s World Poker Tour Main Event. Other final table players included Aaron Lucas, Pete Chwala, Devin Stoll and Corey Zarnoch.
— Chaz Allen is the Ante Up Ambassador for North Florida. Email him at anteup.chazallen@gmail.com.
