It’s been a pretty good start to September for many of Canada’s most talented players on both the live and online felts; in about the last week, Mike McDonald took down the Epic Poker Main Event, Sorel Mizzi won the WPT EUR15,000 “High Roller”, while both “Big_Nemo” and Mike “GoLeafsGoEh” Leah got Canada’s World Championship of Online Poker bracelet count back on track, after each winning an event.
“Big_Nemo” was the first to “ship”, taking down Event #24, a $320 Stud with 337 starting entries. Listed as from Vancouver on PocketFives.com and with only the name “Campbell” shared, all we know is that whoever “Big_Nemo” is, it has been one great year for the semi-anonymous player.
Earlier this year, in the Spring Championships of Online Poker, this player also won the $1,575 “High” Heads Up Title, taking home over $80,000 in a two way deal, but playing out to claim the bragging rights. This latest “online major” win, along with more than $19,000, comes with the added bonus of being the first WCOOP bracelet title won by a Canadian since 2009. Campbell now sits around $690,000 in career tracked online winnings, roughly half of the total appears to have been racked up since the start of 2011 alone.
Mike “GoLeahsGoEh” Leah has now crossed the $1,500,000 mark in career online tournament winnings, after winning the $320 Fixed Limit Badugi WCOOP #27 late Tuesday night. 1st place was worth over $17,000 for Mike, along with the title and bracelet. Both will make fine additions to Leah’s massive and growing collection of major tournament wins; those interested in a more thorough profile can find more information about the Ontario player, including some live stats, under our “Poker Pros” tab.
For those that are not familiar with Badugi, this unique poker discipline has been gaining popularity in recent years; to keep it simple the basics are as follows: Players are dealt 4 cards and have a chance to draw new cards in-between each of 4 betting rounds. A true “badugi” hand contains no pairs or same suits and the lowest hand wins. A winning hand can consist 4,3,2 or just a single card, as long as pairs and two cards of the same suit are not included; one card of any pair or suits would have to be discarded prior to tabling a “final hand”. 4 cards meeting the criteria and as low as possible are better than 3 and so forth; in some ways similar to Omaha “Low” or Razz, but a “speciality” game of it’s own none the less.
After completion of 27 events of the 62 scheduled over the 2011 PokerStars WCOOP, “Big_Nemo” now occupies the 2nd spot on the series leader board, while GoLeafsGoEh” is tied for 4th-5th. Canada is currently just 8 “in the money finishes” behind Russia for “Most Cashes by Country” and only one behind with a 4th place tie for events won. We also trail Russia by only 3 final table finishes in that category; overall some pretty decent statistics considering we are also third overall for number of entrants by country.
Sorel Mizzi also made headlines after winning the “WPT Grand Prix du Paris ‘High Roller’ Event”. Though it seemed to be missing from the official WPT site on the day of the big win, reports from around the globe confirm that Mizzi would be needing room in his suitcase for a nice trophy and EUR234,495 (about $319,397 CAD). Sorel defeated Freddy Deeb in the final two, which ironically, was the very heads up match up from this same event last year. Deeb was the victor in 2010, but Sorel takes the title this year.
Congratulations to all three “soul readers” from CanadaPoker.com!
