Two years ago, The Hendon Mob Championship headed to South Africa for the first time and was hosted in cooperation with the SunBet Poker Tour at the GrandWest Casino by Sun International on the outskirts of Cape Town. The 210 entries were toppled by last year's field of 299 entries in the 2024 The Hendon Mob Championship Cape Town Million to smash the ZAR 1 million guarantee. For the third installment in a row, the stakes were raised with a ZAR 1.25 million guarantee for this year's edition.
Across four starting flights, the ZAR 8,000 (USD 450) buy-in reached a total of 354 entries to nearly double the guarantee and generate a prize pool of ZAR 2,378,880 (USD 137,975) for the popular low-stakes competition. Each of the four Day 1 played down to the money with approximately 12.5% of each field advancing and 46 players bagged up chips to secure a cash prize.
Top 10 Chip Counts for Day 2
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|
| 1 | Marko Nortje | South Africa | 635,000 | 64 |
| 2 | Yoni Lipshitz | South Africa | 515,000 | 52 |
| 3 | Ariel Mazabow | South Africa | 500,000 | 50 |
| 4 | Daniel Scott | South Africa | 454,000 | 45 |
| 5 | Alvin Pillay | South Africa | 440,000 | 44 |
| 6 | Robin Kayalsum | South Africa | 400,000 | 40 |
| 7 | Rudy Frick | South Africa | 369,000 | 37 |
| 8 | Eben Lottering | South Africa | 334,000 | 33 |
| 9 | Jason Zulch | South Africa | 325,000 | 33 |
| 10 | Jonathan Hyman | South Africa | 315,000 | 26 |
Marko Nortje dominated Day 1c with relentless aggression and carried over the largest tally of 635,000, while the other two players on the podium came from the same flight in Yoni Lipshitz (515,000) and Ariel Mazabow (500,000). Daniel Scott was ousted on Day 1c but finished atop the leaderboard in the last chance flight and he returns fourth in chips with 454,000.
Other big stacks belong to Alvin Pillay (440,000), Eben Lottering (334,000), Simon Solomon (312,000), and Hennie Appel (291,000). Many other notables made it through to the money stages including Sean Bloom (252,000), Cliton Taliwanth (192,000), Imran Bhojani (136,000) and Tanith Rothman (86,000).
Summary of the Four Starting Days
| Flight | Entries | Survivors | Chip Leader | Stack |
|---|
| Day 1a | 108 | 14 | Robin Kayalsum | 400,000 |
| Day 1b | 43 | 6 | Jason Zulch | 325,000 |
| Day 1c | 119 | 15 | Marko Nortje | 635,000 |
| Day 1d | 84 | 11 | Daniel Scott | 454,000 |
| Total | 354 | 46 | ZAR 2,378,880 | $137,975 |
They will return to their seats at 12 p.m. local time to try and go all the way. Recommencing blinds will be 5,000-10,000 with a big blind ante of 10,000 for 20 minutes and the level duration increases to 40 minutes each for the final day. As usual, the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to provide as many of the key hands as possible en route to crowning a winner.
The conclusion of the tournament will also include cards-up coverage and English commentary on a security delay of 30 minutes each on the SunBet Poker Tour YouTube channel. Up until the final table, all PokerNews updates from the outer tables will be in real time before switching to the delayed coverage thereafter.
Tags:
Alvin PillayAriel MazabowCliton TaliwanthDaniel ScottEben LotteringHennie AppelImran BhojaniMarko NortjeSean BloomSimon SolomonTanith RothmanYoni Lipshitz
