Last week, we took a look at all the poker action going down in LA and were sure some of our countries best would have top results in the larger buy-in events at “The Big Event” hosted by “the Bike”.
Things are looking pretty good as Jonathan Duhamel continues to prove his skills. After a very deep finish last weekend in the NBC National Heads Up Championship, he has defeated his table in Event #25, a $10,000+300 NLH Bounty Shootout, to advance to the final table.
(For those newer players unfamiliar with Shootout formats, each table plays much like a single table tournament, however only the final player advances, while second place might as well be last, as everybody else gets nothing. The larger the field, the more tables you have to defeat to hit the money and final.)
The 9 remaining final table players locked down a $40,000 payday for defeating their starting table, plus an additional $2000 bounty for each player that they personally eliminated. Canadian player Shawn Buchanan did not advance but currently sits tied with another eliminated player for an additional $20,000 purse that has been set aside for the player with the most bounties when the tournament completes. The mark to beat is currently set at 5, but Jonathan Duhamel, John Smith and Victor Ramdin all have 4 under their belts and a final table to collect more. The player with the most bounties also collects an added seat to another event. Should there be a tie, he who lasts longest wins it, while the bounty pool is split. Each knock-out is now worth $10,000 at the final table and the winner takes all as far as remaining prize money goes, which is set at just under $172,000.
While we do hope to see Duhamel take this down, Victor Ramdin is on a bit of a hot streak of his own. After winning $500,000 in the 5k Main Event just a few days ago after defeating Joe Hachem heads up on the Aussie’s birthday, it is clear Victor is looking for back to back wins in Los Angeles. Hachem wasn’t with out some birthday cheer however, as his 2nd place finish earned him $300,000 in the 5 day event (6 days total if you count both Day 1 starting fields).
Daniel Negreanu was amongst the other well known Canadian players cashing, collecting $9000 for a 37th place finish, while Pat Pezzin and Anh Van Nguyen both earned $8000 a piece for finishing in the top 56 pay-out spots. 417 players entered the Main Event, generating a prize-pool of over 1.9 million dollars.
The series also had a $2800+200 Heads Up competition on March 8th, which had surprisingly poor attendance, with only 23 runners for the 64 max event. Well known player Shannon Shorr won the event for $28,000. It has often been debated whether heads up events in Canada would be better attended at around that buy-in, this example might point to leaving it priced for the elite.
All the remaining events in the series are significantly lower buy-ins, but we’ll keep an eye out for any familiar Canucks taking them down and of course follow Duhamel’s final table progress.
Update:
Jonathan Duhamel came out strong in the first part of the final table, eliminating Victor Ramdin to collect the 10k bounty and tie for the bounty pot. Later in the game, Duhamel lost a crucial coin flip that very likely could have have scooped him not only the $20,000 pot for the most bounties, but would have added 10k to his pockets. Moving all in over top of John Smith’s very short stacked 6,600 chip shove, Duhamel tabled pocket sixes to Smith’s J8 off suit. A jack on the flop left Duhamel only 2 outs to the potentially massively profitable knockout, but a 6 failed to show. Jonathan was eventually eliminated in 6th place, guaranteeing $58,000 for his play in the event. Pat Walsh went on to win the Bounty Shootout’s top final table prize of $171,700 plus $40,000 for defeating his first table, but also scoring 5 bounties in the process to bump his total haul to $241,700! Duhamel, Walsh, Buchanan, Janedi and Smith all tied for the most bounties, so each look to collect another $4,000 from that purse, with Walsh being entitled to the added seat.
