Home / Poker News November 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – PokerStars All Star Challenge
The Poker Grapevine – PokerStars All Star Challenge
Posted by: Mark Baldwing - Fri, 2012-11-02 05:04
The
PokerStars All Star Challenge we told you about a week ago is in full swing. As a matter of fact, the first round matches are all in the books already. Players who have thus far logged wins are Phil Galfond and Daniel Cates. Galfond locked horns with Ben Tollerene on Thursday, and got the better of him, while Cates played Alexander Roumeliotis on Wednesday.
The Cates-Roumeliotis bout was an aggressive one from the get-go: the two players shoved all-in several times, attempting to push their foe off balance. Lady Luck favored Cates during the early going, but during the second hour of action, Roumeliotis bounced back, talking a $30k lead at one point. Of course, during that stretch, he too enjoyed Lady Luck’s favors, filling up a gutshot straight on the river at one point.
From that point on though, Cates began fighting back and soon he was back in the driver’s seat. At one point, he had Roumeliotis down to about 6.5k chips, and even though the latter did manage to claw his way back a bit, it all ended when Cates’ pocket Ks disposed of Roumeliotis’ pocket 4s in the last hand of the bout.
While the Cates-Roumeliotis affair lasted for 3,294 hands, the Galfond-Tollerene battle lasted even longer: it took Galfond 15 hours and 4,341 hands to finish off his opponent.
Galfond was the first one to build up a lead after an initial stalemate. By the 5th hour of action, Tollerene was in control, having built a $56k lead. Galfond bounced right back though and by the 15th hour, he had his opponent cornered.
The final hand of the confrontation saw Tollerene’s Jh,2h fall to Galfond’s Q,5o. The next match of the Series takes place on Friday and it pits Isaac Haxton against Ben Sulsky.
