Greg Raymer Wins Fourth HPT Title

Fourth HPT Win for Greg Raymer

Is it the Raymer Poker Tour? No, it’s still the Heartland Poker Tour, the series of tournaments that travels the United States with reasonable buy-ins and final table television coverage. But Greg Raymer is its 2012 star. The 2004 WSOP Main Event champion has had significant success since that career-changing victory in Las Vegas, but his recent performances on the HPT have been unparalleled.

The eighth season of the HPT came to a close in Florence, Indiana, on Monday at the Belterra Casino Resort. The $1,650 Main Event drew 283 players for a prize pool of nearly $400K. And none other than Greg Raymer made the final table, though he was the shortest stack going into play. But on the very first hand, he doubled through competitor Iverson Snuffer, and seven hands later, he eliminated player Kenneth Hicks. By the time he made it to heads-up play, he had 5,365,000 chips against the 2,955,000 of Jacob Bazeley. In less than 20 hands, Raymer won the title and $106,029.

Raymer made HPT history with his fourth title, and his run on the tour has been impressive this year. In July, he won the New Mexico Main Event in New Mexico for $71,875, then took down the September tournament in Missouri for $121,973 and the October Main Event in Iowa for $72,089. This Indiana HPT win is his fourth title in only five months.

Borgata Poker Open Underway

The Borgata Poker Fall Poker Open Championship is in motion in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The $2,700 buy-in deepstack Main Event had a $1 million guarantee and allowed rebuys on Day 1B for players who busted on Day 1A. Another bonus for players was that the two chip leaders of each starting day were awarded bonuses.

Day 1A gave $3,000 to Vinny Pahuja as the chip leader and $2,000 to Matt Stout for his second place finish for the day. All in all, there were 216 players to start and only 58 to end that day. Day 1B brought in another 428 entries for a grand total of 644, which put the prize pool at $1.61 million. The top 63 players were set to be paid, with $372,568 set aside for the winner.

At post time, Day 1B was down to eight tables.

L.A. Poker Open in Final Day

The fall L.A. Poker Open tournament series at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles was in its final day on Monday. The $1,600 NLHE Main Event started with 364 players, 45 of whom reentered the tournament after bustouts. That paid out 36 players from the $546K prize pool, and $120,620 awaited the winner.

Monday was Day 3 and started with 14 survivors, including names like Bart Hanson and Randy Holland, with Malik Adawi in top chip position. At post time, the final table was down to six players with Holland as the chip leader.