April’s Spring Classic at Choctaw Casino and Resort in Durant, Okla., which featured a $50K added Best All-Around player to the top-30 point-earners, saw Ben Perez of Plainview, Texas, grab the main-event title.
The $300K guarantee platinum-ring main event drew 356 entries as Perez earned $79,424. I made a somewhat deep run in the main, but I got “Salaburued” when I ran my pocket kings into Octo-Niner Robert Salaburu’s A-9 and, of course, he spiked an ace on the flop and I was gone.
Players got two points for every entry in Events 1-27 and points for cashing in each. All of the events were no-limit hold’em, and the results reported here will be for the noon events only. Readers can check pokerexecutives.com for complete results.
Event 1 was shipped by Clint Fawcett to the tune of $16,004. Next was the $100K guarantee silver-ring event won by Andrew Robinson of Round Rock, Texas, for $31,418. Robinson won three events.
The $200K guarantee gold-ring event went to Kurt Jewel from Frankfort, Ky., for $58,866. Joel Woods of Crowley, Texas, won $10,184 in the fourth noon tilt. Barbara Sargent from Fort Worth, Texas, won the Monday noon for $7,542. John Corrales of Grand Prairie, Texas, won the Tuesday contest for $7,618. Wednesday saw Marcelo Campon of Grapevine, Texas, take it for $7K. Friday’s event went to Vernon Harrison from Ingram, Texas, for $20,278.
So, who won the all-around title? Out of 1,351 players with points, my buddy Sean Hansen bested Robinson (118 to 113) and pocketed a cool extra $10K. Hansen just happens to be the founder and owner of Big Slick Poker Academy in Dallas, one of our advertisers and he contributes to Ante Up writing articles about cash-game play (see both in this issue).
Big Slick ran a two-day Championship Poker Playing for the Win with Gavin Griffin tournament bootcamp in March. “I have always been primarily a cash-game player but after Gavin’s course I decided to turn my attention to tournament play for the Spring Poker Classic,” Hansen said. “I was able to put Gavin’s teachings to good use, which allowed me to win the best all-around player.” Now if that isn’t a ringing endorsement on continuing poker education, then I don’t know what is.
— Email John at anteupjohndshort@gmail.com.
