Home / Poker News December 2012 / The Best Poker Stories of 2012 – Raymer’s HPT Run
The Best Poker Stories of 2012 – Raymer’s HPT Run
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2012-12-27 01:51
When it comes to feel-good 2012 poker stories, we just can’t leave Greg Raymer out: the 2004
WSOP Main Event winner had faded away after
PokerStars dropped him, but he’s apparently found new life in the Heartland Poker Tour (HPT). Off the big stage, Raymer wasted no time hitting the more local-focused HPT, where his skills proved not to have lost any luster whatsoever over the years spent as the official ambassador of one of the largest
online poker operations.
Raymer’s 2012 HPT performance was nothing short of amazing: of the 16 HPT events, he won a staggering 25% (a full quarter indeed), taking home a total of $371.9k for his efforts – definitely not a bad haul for a player who’s supposedly on his way out. Needless to say, through his wins, Raymer set a whole bunch of HPT records. No one else had ever won two HPT events during the same season. The only multiple title-holder was Jeremy Dresch, but he had won an event in 2009 and another one in 2010 to set the record.
The interesting thing about Raymer’s phenomenal run was that he never really intended to play in the first HPT event of the season. The HPT had just been taken over by Pinnacle Entertainment and Raymer got invited to provide at some pro presence in the first event of the season. He did well obviously, and in the end he walked away from the Route 66 Casino in Albuquerque with a $71.8k prize.
In September, he followed it up with another win, at the River City Casino in St. Louis Missouri. This time, he took down $121.9k. He then won the HPT Prairie Meadows event too and the HPT Championship Open at the Belterra Casino Resort.
