The Mohegan Sun Summer Showdown in Uncasville, Conn., ran with four events at the end of July as Jonas Bendiks captured the $1,100 main event for $26,400. The tourney drew 116 entries for a $112K prize pool as Leonard Sande was runner-up after a chop and earned ($24,877). James Parrott was third ($13,581).
Sande had a great series, finishing second in the $200 opener for nearly $11K. That event had 489 entries and a prize pool of $80K-plus. Mark Perry earned the victory for $15,673 Frank Belasic was third ($7,064).
Quintin Tyson won the $300 bounty title for $4,691 and Sean Davidson grabbed the final event’s crown, winning the $300 tourney for $9,483, beating 145 players.
The poker room has a number of daily high-hand promotions this month and Wednesdays feature a $120 event with a $10K guarantee.
FOXWOODS RESORT CASINO: Labor Day Weekend will showcase a number of tournaments. If you read this in time, head to the poker room Aug. 31 for a $250 super stack turbo with re-entries and a $25K guarantee. Sept. 1 is a $300 big stack with re-entries and a $30K guarantee, followed by a $250 turbo with re-entries and a $25K guarantee Sept. 2. The mini-series wraps with $400 event with re-entries and a $40K guarantee on Labor Day.
Sept. 9 is the Moneymaker PokerStars Players Championship Tour stop. The buy-in is small ($86), in honor of the online tournament buy-in that launched Chris Moneymaker’s path to World Series victory in 2003, but the prize pool is large (supplemented by Stars with a prize package valued at $30K, which includes a $25K entry into the PSPC in January in the Bahamas.
New York
TURNING STONE RESORT CASINO: The Empire State Championships were running at press time, so look for results in a future issue. So, looking ahead, don’t forget about the October Weekend, featuring a $50K guarantee Oct. 4-7. Please see the ad on Page 34 in our latest issue for more details.
SENECA SALAMANCA: The poker room celebrates its 15th anniversary Sept. 5-6. A commemorative gift will be given to everyone who plays in the room Sept. 5. On Sept. 6, hourly high hands are paid 10 a.m.-1 a.m. The most popular tournament in the room is the $5K guarantee deepstack on the third Thursday of the month at 6 p.m.
SENECA NIAGARA: On Labor Day, there’s a $25K giveaway that features hourly $500 winners, hourly $1K high hands and an MLB World Series VIP package giveaway.
Massachusetts
MGM SPRINGFIELD: By the time you read this, the new $960M MGM Resorts casino will have opened, and inside will be a 20-table poker room. It will have some stiff competition, however, as Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are close enough to keep players in Connecticut and the Wynn’s Boston Harbor Casino is set to open soon. Plus, Connecticut is pushing forward with another casino in the Hartford area, just outside Springfield, so poker players will have plenty of options in New England.
Atlantic City-Philadelphia
The Golden Nugget poker room in Atlantic City has opened on the fourth floor and is enclosed in glass for privacy.
It has nine tables with USB connectors at each seat, Wi-Fi service and tableside food service. There will be a $50 turbo Saturday nights at 7:15 with a $1,500 guarantee and the Sunday tournament begins at 6:15 p.m.
TROPICANA A.C.: The Treasure Box promotion pays $150 to the highest hand every hour around the clock. You must use both hole cards and aces full of kings is the qualifier.
BORGATA: The Borgata Poker Open runs Sept. 4-22. There are 23 events with $6.5M-plus in guarantees. Tournaments include the kickoff event Sept. 4 for $1.5M. The $450 Almighty Stack event is Sept. 12 with a $1M guarantee. The $3,500 championship starts Sept. 16 and has a $3M guarantee.
In other tourney news, July’s Summer Poker Open went to Gregory Nerenberg of Great Neck, N.Y. He took home $365K-plus for this victory.
Gary Tavella of Philadelphia and Michael Rossitto of Brooklyn chopped the deepstack kickoff with Tavella declared the winner. Each player took home $143,730 and Mohammad Saadeghvaziri from Basking Ridge, N.J., won the Almighty Stack for $84K.
PARX CASINO: A $225K high-hand promotion runs until Sept. 23. There will be daily high hands split between $250 and $500 each half-hour Sunday-Thursday and $500 Friday and Saturday. Every winner will be entered into eight drawings for $5K each after the promotion ends.
The Big Stax series got off to a great start, surpassing the entries from last year, and will be recapped in our next issue.
SANDS BETHLEHEM: All Friday and Sunday tournaments will have the big-blind-ante structure. There’s a $325 deepstack Sept. 28 and a $400 black-chip-bounty event Sept. 9. Also, a $125 PLO event is Sept. 6 and 20.
HARRAH’S PHILADELPHIA: The 28-table WSOP Poker Room, which spreads limit up to $20-$40 and no-limit up to $10-$25, has a sliding scale for its comp rate. The $2-$6 limit game and $1-$2 NLHE will earn you $1 an hour, followed by $1-$3 NLHE ($1.50), $2-$5 ($2) and $5-$10 ($3).
Mid-Atlantic
Located between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Live Casino and Hotel hosts the World Poker Tour this month with nearly $2M in guarantees. The series runs Sept. 14-25, featuring 21 events, including the $3,500 WPT main event, which has a $1.5M guarantee and opening flights on Sept. 21 (1A) and Sept. 22 (1B).
Other interesting events include the $360 opener, which sports a $250K guarantee and four Day 1s (Sept. 14-15) and Day 2 on Sept. 16, and a women’s event Sept. 16 for $300. The full schedule, which also includes, seniors, five-card PLO, bounties, HORSE and PLO/8, is on Page 33 of our September issue.
MGM NATIONAL HARBOR: The poker room has moved to the second floor of the casino as part of its $48M expansion.
The 38,000-square-foot second-level casino introduces an expanded poker room, off-track horse betting, nearly 300 slots, a bar and a fast-casual dining venue.
The poker room will increase by seven tables to 46, with seating for 460 players. The space also features a two-table high-limit area. The second-level gaming floor is open 24 hours.
Delaware
DOVER DOWNS HOTEL AND CASINO: The Delaware Poker Championship has eight events Aug. 29-Sept. 3. The $100K Delaware Championship runs Aug. 31-Sept. 2 and guarantees for the weekend of events are at least $160K.
The championship costs $550 and features two starting flights. Flight A is Aug. 31 at 10:15 a.m. and Flight B is Sept. 1 at 10:15 a.m. Players get 30K chips and blinds are 30 minutes. Day 2 is Sept. 2.
Six $65 satellites are scheduled for players to win their way into the event, One out of every 10 participants win a seat into Flight A. Here’s the satellite schedule: Aug. 19 and Aug. 26 at 11:15 a.m.; Aug. 27-30 at 7:15 p.m. Six tournaments, including a $10K guarantee Black Chip Bounty event and a pot-limit Omaha tourney, will run during the championship weekend.
If you read this in time, the schedule includes a Beat the Boss Kickoff on Aug. 29 at 11:15 a.m. It has a $5K guarantee for $120 and features a $500 bounty for the player who knocks the boss out of the event. The PLO championship is Aug. 30 at 11:15 a.m. and has a $10K guarantee for $140. The black-chip bounty is Aug. 31 at 7:15. It carries a $10K guarantee and $10K in bounties for $230.
There’s a turbo Sept. 1 at 7:15 p.m. ($10K guarantee, $130), a survivor on Sept. 2 at 11:15 a.m. ($5K guarantee, $120) and a deepstack Sept. 2 at 7:15 p.m. ($10K guarantee, $130).
The finale is Sept. 3 at 11:15 a.m. ($10K guarantee, $75).
In other news, Duane Thomas of Harrington, Del., received the biggest share of the July Championship and was crowned champion. There were 208 entries for a $39,500 prize pool.
HARRINGTON CASINO AND RACEWAY: The poker room hosts an Omaha Round By Round tournament on Wednesdays at 11 a.m. The $60 event sports a $1K guarantee and you can sign up at 10 a.m.
Meet Matt Stout
Matt Stout is a poker pro with New Jersey roots and the founder of Charity Series of Poker.
What are your poker plans? I was already planning on traveling less in 2018 and spending more time playing pot-limit Omaha cash games at home.
Then in February, the conception of my first child with my girlfriend, Brittney Barnes, helped cement that plan. I’m still going to be traveling for some select WPT stops like Borgata and the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, but spending well over half the year living out of a suitcase is a thing of the past for me.
I like waking up at home with my girlfriend and my dogs and being able to set my own schedule.
How has the CSOP developed over the years? I started the CSOP as a grassroots volunteer organization to give back and we helped raised $350K-plus during the first four years and 12 events for Habitat for Humanity, various food banks and other organizations.
The way the poker community has shown their support is remarkable and I get a lot of credit for the CSOP but there’s no way I could do it without the community’s support.
How do you spend your free time? I go back to Jersey and visit family pretty frequently. I’ve been skiing in Colorado a bunch lately and am getting pretty serious about it. I also love boating, Jet-Skiing and flyboarding at Lake Mead and Lake Las Vegas. I’m also a nerdy gamer at heart and play a decent amount of NHL on XBox and board games like Ticket To Ride.
Occasionally, I even find a minute to spare to give some attention to my girlfriend, but as she will tell you, it’s all too infrequent. — Jo Kim
