Home / Poker News February 2010 / PokerStars NAPT – High rollers event
PokerStars NAPT – High rollers event
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2010-02-24 14:59
With the main event of the North American Poker Tour slowly winding down, the limelight was taken by the NAPT High rollers event, a poker tournament featuring a unique shootout structure devised by
PokerStars’ specialists. The $25k buy-in event featured 49 players, some of whom were specially invited for the High Rollers’ shootout. PokerStars’ Daniel Negreanu was there, together with Phil Hellmuth, JC Tran, PartyPoker’s Tony G, Vanessa Rousso and Jason Mercier.
To add a twist to the action, each of the players carried a $5k bounty, and each of the final table participants would have to win a table, a feat for which, a $75k extra reward was due. According to Daniel Negreanu, the shootout structure was introduced to add to the spectacle as that way, players couldn’t just fold their way to the final table, they would actually have to bring the goods from the get go.
The preliminary action was broken up into two heats. The first one was a 3 table one, the second a 4 table one.
Scott Seiver had the most dominant run of all table winners. He eliminated all six of his opponents, collecting all 6 bounties.
Faraz Jaka and Hoyt Corkins were the other two players who moved on from the fist heat. Corkins did well too: he collected 5 scalps, and added the $75k reward on top of the bounty money.
Jaka had to deal with Annie Duke heads-up but eventually managed to send her to the rail and he too moved on to the final table, having collected 4 bounties.
Joe Cassidy collected 4 bounties too, and he disposed of Justin Bonomo heads-up to get his hands on the $75k prize.
Peter Eastgate locked horns with Isaac Haxton heads-up at the other table. The Dane was the one who eventually triumphed and collected the winner’s spoils, on top of the 2 bounties he’d managed to collect.
Ashton Griffin showed up late, but he gathered momentum as the
poker tournament progressed and he eventually bounced Chris Moneymaker to secure the final table seat. He collected 2 bounties too.
The last final table spot went to Brett Richey, whose pocket Ks made short work of Lee Markholt’s pocket 8s in the last hand of the heads-up confrontation. Richey secured 3 bounties.
