This Week in Tournament Poker: September 5-11, 2010

Commerce Casino

Plenty of action came across our radar this past week on the live tournament scene. Asia, Europe and North America all had some marquee events wrapping up, and some new names have emerged with pockets full of cash.

The six events we’ll be taking a look at this week are the PokerStars Balkan Festival in Bulgaria; Macau Red Dragon Cup in Macau; Gulf Coast Poker Championship in Biloxi, Mississippi; Grand Series of Poker in London; Commerce Hold’em Series in Los Angeles; and Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City. As you can see, once again, events happened all over the globe.

In Bulgaria, the PokerStars Balkan Festival drew 151 entries and created a prize pool of €135,896. Yavor Tutev bested everyone to win the €36,693 first-place prize.

PokerStars Balkan Festival

Buy-inEntriesPrize Pool
€900 + €90151€135,896
PlacePlayerPrize
1Yavor Tutev€36,693
2Kiril Kochev€24,462
3Ivelin Spasov€14,949
4Atanas Ardashev€10,872
5Hristo Genov€7,474
6Lubomir Stoianov€5,436
7Rumen Rashkov€4,077
8Sorin Achitei€3,397

At the Macau Red Dragon Cup, a sizable field of 314 showed up at the Grand Lisboa Hotel & Casino to give it a go, and when play ended, James McCarty emerged victorious. Nam Le and Kenny Shih finished in the money, as well.

Macau Red Dragon Cup

Buy-inEntriesPrize Pool
HK$10,000314HK$2,859,912
PlacePlayerPrize
1James McCartyHK$643,000
2Wai KeongHK$443,000
3Fan LiuHK$263,000
4Masashi MinowaHK$207,000
5Wai WongHK$165,000
6Michael MariakisHK$136,000
7Rathi ShashankHK$107,000
8Makoto YoshimichiHK$79,000
9Dean HoltHK$64,012
10Sachin DaswaniHK$50,000

Notable Finishes: Nam Le (25th – HK$22,900), Kenny Shih (31st – HK$17,200)

In London, the Grand Series of Poker held another event. This one was won by Richard Gryko who bested a field of 52 in the £750 Main Event to claim the £11,700 first-place prize.

GSOP 2010

Buy-inEntriesPrize Pool
£75052£39,000
PlacePlayerPrize
*1Richard Gryko£11,700
*2Andy Achillea£6,143
*3Paul Romain£6,143
4Oliver Price£3,900
5Patryk Slusarek£3,120
6Kirit Patel£2,535
7Lisa Edwards£2,145
8Jamie Lillywhite£1,755
9Ian Woodley£ 1,560

Three events took place in the United States. The $4,800 Gulf Coast Poker Championship event in Biloxi, Mississippi, was won by Mark Rose. The event drew 109 entrants and had a final table that included Kai Landry, Will “Monkey” Souther and Chad Brown.

Gulf Coast Poker Championship

Buy-inEntriesPrize Pool
$4,800 + $200109$492,710
PlacePlayerPrize
1Mark Rose$177,386
2Kai Landry$93,621
3Will “Monkey” Souther$59,129
4Chad Brown$39,419
5Jonathan Stanton$34,492
6Mike Bradford$29,534
7Ricky Bennett$24,637
8Ben Chen$19,710
9Ronald Romano$14,782

At the Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City, which always pulls big numbers because it is the premier establishment on the East Coast for poker tournaments, the opening $350 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack event drew a whopping 964 entries and created a prize pool worth $337,400. William Patteron took home the top prize worth over $73,000.

Borgata Poker Open

Buy-inEntriesPrize Pool
$350 + $50964$337,400
PlacePlayerPrize
1William Patterson$73,638
2Mitchell Wilson$43,364
3Benjamin Butler$26,182
4Andrew DeGeorge$21,928
5Brian Munshower$18,000
6John Delio$14,564
7Joe Miranda$11,618
8Daniel Shapiro$8,837
9Gregory Scarpa$6,055

Last, but not least, we have the opening event from the Commerce Hold’em Series, which is currently running. Much like the Borgata is on the East Coast, Commerce Casino is the juggernaut poker venue on the West Coast. The first event of the series was a $200 buy-in with a massive $500,000 guarantee! The event was won by Jorge Lara who took home over $100,000 for his microinvestment of $200.

Commerce Hold’em Series

Buy-inEntriesPrize Pool
$2002,637$501,030
PlacePlayerPrize
1Jorge Lara$104,230
2Michael Demerit$58,800
3Thung Huynh$33,600
4L.D. Gray$26,800
5Derek Gomez$20,000
6Brian Han$16,000
7Binh Nguyen$12,000
8Wade Edwards$8,000
9Ong Khounphithack$5,600

Notable Finishes: Kenny Tran (117th - $700), Gioi Luong (123rd - $600), Joe Tehan (130th - $600)

* - Denotes a chop.

This wraps up another installment of This Week in Tournament Poker. There will be plenty of action to come next week. Don’t forget that if you happen to live close to the Borgata or Commerce Casino, those events are still running and have very nice schedules that should make most poker players happy.

If you like big tournament action online, there is still time to qualify for this weeks $20,000 William Hill Pay Day, exclusive to PokerNews.

As always, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news and become our fan on Facebook.

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