The Week in Poker: Raghavan, Teasdale Latest Winners
Both Raghavan and Teasdale won more than just their first prizes this week. With Raghavan's win, he earns a $25K entry into the end-of-season World Poker Tour Championship at the Bellagio, while Teasdale gets an $10K entry into the $1 Million World Series of Poker National Championship. Both of those events take place in May 2013.
There has been lots of action on the professional poker circuit this week, with two more champions crowned and three other events playing out. Of the winners, the World Poker Tour crowned a new champion in Ravi Raghavan in the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. And Adam Teasdale won the latest WSOP Circuit Main Event at Harrah's Resort Atlantic City.
Raghavan Rules WPT Five Diamond
Earlier this week at the Bellagio in Las Vegas the final table of the World Poker Tour's Five Diamond World Poker Classic played out, with Ravi Raghavan emerging as the winner of the $1,268,571 first prize after coming from behind at an especially tough final table.
The $10K event (with unlimited reentries) attracted a total of 368 players. Many reentered twice and a handful fired as many as six bullets, with there being 503 total entries and a prize pool of $4,879,100.
The top 54 finishers cashed and there were many notables among those who did, including former WPT champions Lee Markholt (52nd, $19,516), Chino Rheem (40th, $21,956), Will Failla (32nd, $26,835), John Hennigan (25th, $31,714), Noah Schwartz (17th, $36,593), Scott Clements (15th, $40,250), Freddy Deeb (12th, $56,110), and Yevgeniy Timoshinko (11th, $56,110).
There were two more players with WPT titles at the six-handed final table, including Buchanan and Antonio Esfandiari, the latter of whom actually won this same event in 2010 and final tabled it last year.
Esfandiari led early on at the six-handed final table while Raghavan began as the short stack. Raghavan managed to double up twice early on, however, and hung around as Jeremy Kottler and Andrew Lichtenberger fell.
Esfandiari met his end in fourth shortly thereafter after suffering a big double-through by Thomas Winters, then running Ac-Kh into Raghavan's Ah-As to be eliminated.
That hand put Raghavan well in front, then Buchanan knocked out Winters when his 10h-10s held versus Winters's As-7d.
Raghavan had a little less than a 2-to-1 chip lead versus Buchanan to start heads-up play, and while the battle took some time (69 hands), Raghavan never lost the lead, finally finishing off Buchanan in a hand that saw Buchanan shove a short stack with Kd-7s, Raghavan call with 7h-7c, and the board run out 9d-Js-9h-8s-4d.
While Raghavan has had several deep runs and numerous cashes over the last five years, his triumph at the Bellagio this week marks his biggest career score by far, bringing his overall career tourney earnings up near the $2 million mark.
2012 WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic final table payouts:
1st: Ravi Raghavan -- $1,268,571
2nd: Shawn Buchanan -- $746,502
3rd: Thomas Winters -- $483,031
4th: Antonio Esfandiari -- $329,339
5th: Andrew Lichtenberger -- $234,197
6th: Jeremy Kottler -- $187,845
Teasdale Triumphs at WSOP Circuit Harrah's Atlantic City
The World Series of Poker Circuit continued its nonstop tour around North America this week, finding a new Main Event champion at Harrah's Resort Atlantic City in Adam Teasdale who survived a tough heads-up opponent in Wade Woelfel to win the ring and $194,040 first prize.
This $1,675 buy-in event allowed re-entries as well, and in the end a total of 616 entries were bought, with the prize pool ultimately totaling $924,000.
The top 63 finishers cashed, and among them were Stan Jablonski (32nd, $4,509) and Will Failla (31st, $4,509), both of whom had flown across the country after having just cashed in the WPT Five Diamond event. (Back at the Bellagio, Jablonski had taken 47th for a $19,516 score.)
After two days of play, 26 players came back for the final Day 3 with Teasdale the leader. He'd enter the nine-handed final table fifth in chips, and for a time Terry Grimes enjoyed a big lead at that final table as players began to fall.
Teasdale ultimately took the lead back, however, as Grimes fell in fifth, Sung Kim went out in fourth, and Pedro "Pete" Rios was eliminated in third place.
Heads-up play then began with Woelfel enjoying a slight lead over Teasdale and hoping to complete an amazing final day that saw him start out just 24th of 26 in chips. But Teasdale soon took the advantage once again, and after about an hour-and-a-half held a 2-to-1 lead in chips when an exciting final hand took place.
After Woelfel had called a Teasdale three-bet before the flop, Woelfel again bet on the Qd-Qh-6h flop and Teasdale called. The turn then brought the 4s, and this time Woelfel checked and Teasdale took a shot, betting 460,000 into the 1.12 million pot.
Woelfel responded with a check-raise shove totaling 3.64 million, and Teasdale went deep into the tank before finding a call. Teasdale had 9s-4h for queens and fours, while Woelfel had but As-5h, and after the Qc river Teasdale had won.
2012-13 WSOP-C Harrah's Resort Atlantic City final table payouts:
1st: Adam Teasdale -- $194,040
2nd: Wade Woelfel -- $120,018
3rd: Pedro "Pete" Rios -- $87,762
4th: Sung Kim -- $65,124
5th: Terry Grimes -- $49,000
6th: Aaron Overton -- $37,376
7th: Barry Leventhal -- $28,903
8th: Ed Modlin -- $22,656
9th: Trevor Deeter -- $18,000
EPT Prague playing out; WSOP-C Rincon and DeepStack Extravaganza starting up
A couple of other noteworthy tournaments are also being staged this week, the most notable being the European Poker Tour's current stop at Prague in the Czech Republic.
Day 5 of the €5,300 buy-in Main Event begins today with just 21 players left from the original starting field of 864. With a total prize pool of €4,190,000, a first prize of €835,000 awaits the winner.
Heading into Friday it was Ben Warrington leading the way with 2.618 million chips, putting him slightly ahead of David Boyaciyan's 2.469 million. Also still with chips are Jeff Sarwer, Johnny Lodden, and Roberto Romanello.
And today will see two more events kick off on opposite sides of the U.S.
The WSOP Circuit begins another $1,675 buy-in Main Event at Harrah's Rincon today in San Diego. Meanwhile, the $2,500 buy-in Sands Bethlehem DeepStack Extravaganza also gets underway in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.
