Lone Star Poker Series Day 3
Day 1 Started
Lone Star Poker Series Champions Social
Lone Star Poker Series Day 3
Day: 1
Top
Chip Counts
Chip Counts
2
567,000
3
539,000
6
318,000
Flight E Status
Action has been intense so far today in Flight E which has attracted the largest amount of entries of any flight by far with a touch over 100.
Registration will close after the current 20-minute break. There is one more starting flight, which starts this evening at 5 p.m., the last chance for players to take their shot at bagging for Day 2 of the $400 buy-in, $150K GTD Spring Series Kick Off.
Industry Insiders: Isaac Trumbo of Houston’s Champions Poker Club
Right now, the Lone Star Poker Series is taking place at Champions Poker Club, Houston’s premier cardroom. The festival, which is being live reported here on PokerNews, coming to town was due in no small part to 39-year-old Isaac Trumbo, Executive Vice President of Champions Poker Club.
Trumbo, who has been married for 18 years and has a six-year-old daughter, has worked in the industry since 2007, which is when he began his career in the California cardrooms.
“California has a very unique gaming framework,” he told PokerNews. “I started on the tables, thinking that I was getting a great short-term job, and instead I found a career in an industry that I would have never imagined.”
Trumbo, who actually bagged the big stack in Friday night's flight in the Kickoff Event, first learned poker from his father, who enjoyed games of every kind.
“He introduced me and my brothers to canasta, backgammon, hearts, rummy, chess, blackjack, and of course every variety of poker imaginable,” said Trumbo. “We’d play for points or mixed nuts, but eventually I started losing G.I. Joe's to my older brother on the regular. So, like many others, I was well primed to get swept up in the poker boom. I fell in love with the game and with cardrooms, and I’ve been at it ever since.”
So, for someone who has been in the industry a long time, what’s the craziest thing Trumbo has ever witnessed?
“About 10 years ago, I was the Casino Manager at a small Sacramento cardroom. Late one night, a fistfight broke out on one of our poker tables,” he explained. “The big blind had put the hijack all in, and while he was contemplating, two players who were uninvolved came to blows with the fight ending up on top of the table. The fight was broken up and the police were called.”
He continued: “When all was said and done, my shift manager turned to the player in the hijack and said, ‘So what are you going to do?’ The player was confused, so the shift manager said, ‘He put you all in. I need a call or a fold, brother.’ Remarkably, the pot and the hands were undisturbed despite a beating happening on top of the table. Those were some seriously sturdy tables.”
Fortunately, such disturbances haven’t been a problem in Texas, which has been a hotbed for poker in recent years. Among the many different cardrooms in Houston, Champions Poker Club has set itself apart from the competition. Trumbo offered his take on why.
“The Champions team strives to offer an environment where poker players can play and feel a sense of security and comfort. The underground card rooms have been in existence for years, but not everyone is comfortable in that type of environment. We want to offer a private membership experience that ‘wows’ the players from the minute they walk in the door by offering excellent customer service, a beautiful room with all the amenities, action-packed poker games, and of course great poker tournaments, especially like this Lone Star Poker Series.”
For more on Champions Poker Club, follow them on Twitter at @HTXChampions.
Flight E Chip Counts
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
150,000 | 150,000 |
|
125,000 | |
|
|
120,000 | 120,000 |
|
105,000 | 105,000 |
|
|
75,000 | 75,000 |
|
|
63,000 | 63,000 |
|
45,000 | 45,000 |
Flight E in Action
Vu Amongst the Leaders
Nic Vu has had a nice Flight E so far and has built his stack up after having a great couple of levels. According to him, he gathered a large number of chips when his opponent misread his hand, incorrectly believing that he had a flush draw.
The winner of over $220,000 in career poker earnings, Vu is looking to build his stack into a deep run and add another nice score to his resume.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
255,000 | 130,000 |
Flight F Underway
The final flight has started play with 25 entries at the start.
Players will have until approximately 9:30 p.m. to either jump in or re-enter before registration is closed for the night.
Hand for Hand Play in Flight E
Only one more elimination is needed before Flight E will end for the day with the 13 advancing players. The chip counts of the surviving players will be available shortly after the conclusion of Flight E.
Flight E Final Chip Counts
Flight E has come to an end with 13 players remaining of the 102 entries. Collin Bountree leads Flight E with a stack of 567,000. Jake Burnett is nipping at his heels with 539,000.
Gerald Stogner becomes the second plate to double bag and has guaranteed himself a min cash.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
567,000 | 567,000 |
|
|
539,000 | 539,000 |
|
|
324,000 | 174,000 |
|
262,000 | 262,000 |
|
248,000 | 248,000 |
|
|
208,000 | 208,000 |
|
|
202,000 | 202,000 |
|
153,000 | 153,000 |
|
138,000 | 138,000 |
|
|
129,000 | 129,000 |
|
|
127,000 | 127,000 |
|
|
120,000 | -135,000 |
|
|
52,000 | 52,000 |
Ontuawn Armour of Houston Poker Live and Never Fold Poker
Ontuawn Armour, founder of Houston Poker Live and Never Fold Poker sat down with PokerNews to discuss all things Houston Poker.
Armour had a classic entry into poker as he explained what got him interested in the game to begin with.
“I was a sophomore in high school and just flipping through the channels, I saw the WSOP come on and all I heard was million dollar prizepool etc. It caught my attention and then I started to fall in love with it, trying to predict what the players had which got me real interested and led me to start playing online.
From online it shifted to live as his interest grew. “I walked into a bar one day and they had Texas Hold’em going on and that was the first time I knew there was poker going on in Houston. I started winning the bar games and got invited to cash games and from there things really took off.”
Houston Poker Live
He then explained the genesis of the Never Fold poker brand and how Houston Poker Live stemmed from that about three to four years ago.
“I saw things happen like players running $10 up to $1,000 in cash games and it made me develop this brand Never Fold. I figured the best way to market it was to go around to these clubs and start a youtube channel and that’s where Houston Poker Live came from. There was no promotion going on. These clubs were so scared to promote themselves, they didn’t want to risk being shut down. But when I read into the laws and the gray areas I saw there was no reason for them to be scared. They had 200 people at a bar poker tournament where they were paying $1,000, while they could be coming to a poker club and play for more with healthier competition. But the early days were rough; at first they told me they didn’t want any pictures. I had to blur out the faces on videos.”
The Houston Poker Scene and the Lone Star Poker Series
The discussion then shifted to the benefits of poker in Houston.
“I always wanted to play in the WSOP and to that point I had only been able to travel to New Orleans for the circuit but I wanted to see games here especially with not having a huge bankroll. I’m not a pro or anything, I had just got started”
Armour was excited about the current state of Houston Poker and where it can go from here, helped in large part by the Lone Star Poker Series.
“Man, I think it’s great! I think it’s blossoming, I think it’s not at it’s peak yet. We are still at the beginning stages. The Lone Star Poker Series is incredible. It’s almost like a dream come true, very similar to what I envisioned. It’s just beautiful to see it happening here, right down the street, I mean I live 20 minutes away from here.
He was adamant about the strength of Houston Poker and how it stacks up to anywhere in the USA.
“The whole goal was to show people that Houston and Texas is one of the meccas of poker in the United States. We can argue that topic, but I strongly believe that. We don’t need the WPT or WSOP here to run big events, some of the events we run here in a week are bigger than the ones they run in a month. We do have that type of pull, the capacity and the players. We just have to do more promotions and more marketing to the outside world to show people that things are legit here.”
Never Fold Poker
Armour ended by talking about his brand Never Fold Poker, which in many ways reflects his attitude in life.
“A guy told me, you never fold, you never give up huh? I said you know what? I like that. You can apply this is any walk of life, never fold, never quit, never back down and you will reach the things you set out to reach and I just thought it was a catchy metaphor for life, through poker.”