Fernando Wins HPT, WPT Borgata Sets Record, Moorman Writes

Exequiel Fernando Wins HPT Thunder Valley

Players turned up in Lincoln, California, for the Heartland Poker Tour stop at Thunder Valley Casino Resort. The Main Event began on January 23 and brought 537 entries into the tournament for a $778,335 prize pool.

The final table was set at the end of a long Day 2, and J.C. Tran joined Ed Miller and Phuoc Nguyen as the top three stacks ready for the January 27 finale. But it was one of the shorter stacks, Exequiel Fernando, who pushed forward and got to heads-up play and defeated Ed Miller.

Fernando is a 37-year old engineer from Elk Grove, California, who satellited into the Main Event for $720 and walked away with $179,020.

Results:

1^st place: Exequiel Fernando ($179,020)

2^nd place: Ed Miller ($109,424)

3^rd place: Ngoc Bui ($72,541)

4^th place: Tony Nguyen ($50,436)

5^th place: Neil Blumenfield ($37,749)

6^th place: Phuoc Nguyen ($29,188)

7^th place: Ben Sarnoff ($23,739)

8^th place: J.C. Tran ($19,458)

9^th place: Grant Hillman ($15,567)

WPT Borgata Becomes Second Largest

When the World Poker Tour arrived in Atlantic City for the WPT Borgata Poker Open Main Event, players came in from the cold to play the $3,500 NLHE reentry event with its $3 million guarantee. And the final total of 1,229 players made it the second largest WPT Main Event in its 12-season history.

Day 1A had 422 entries, and another 807 on Day 1B made for a grand total of 1,229 entries. The prize pool added up to more than $3.9 million, well over the guarantee, and it would be used to pay the top 120 finishers and reserve $842,379 for the winner.

Day 2 began with 642 surviving players and Lazaro Hernandez atop the leaderboard with 258,175 chips. Todd Rebello was in second place with 229,825.

The field thinned greatly throughout the day, with only 228 players remaining by the start of Level 16. From the looks of the leaderboard at that time, Matt Haugen had climbed into the top spot with 745K chips, and Hernandez sat in second with 711K.

Chris Moorman Pens Strategy Book

According to PokerNews, Chris Moorman is preparing to release a strategy book tentatively titled “Moorman’s Book of Poker.” In it, he will offer analysis of more than 100 hands played by co-author Byron Jacobs.

The book is set to be released at some point later in 2014 by D&B Poker.