Raghavan Wins Bellagio, Ho Joins HPT

Ravi Raghavan Wins WPT Bellagio

The final table of the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic played out during the late evening hours of December 9. The tournament began days before with 503 entries, but only six players made the final table.

Antonio Esfandiari was the chip leader going into the action and looking to repeat his 2010 win, but he had a tough time keeping up momentum. Meanwhile, Ravi Raghavan started off with a double-up and found a number of similar opportunities throughout the action. Short-stacked Kottler was the first out, followed by Andrew Lichtenberger after Raghavan doubled through him more than once. Esfandiari then fell in fourth place, followed by Thomas Winters. Raghavan led heads-up play against Shawn Buchanan from the beginning, and the latter never gained much ground. Buchanan ended up in second while Raghavan claimed $1.2 million and the WPT title. All information provided by the WPT live updates team.

1^st place: Ravi Raghavan ($1,268,571)

2^nd place: Shawn Buchanan ($746,502)

3^rd place: Thomas Winters ($483,031)

4^th place: Antonio Esfandiari ($329,339)

5^th place: Andrew Lichtenberger ($234,197)

6^th place: Jeremy Kottler ($187,845)

WSOP Circuit Updates

The World Series of Poker Circuit in Atlantic City was working its way through the last day of the Main Event on December 10, and the final table was set in the evening. Terry Grimes was the chip leader at the start of that last table, with Aaron Overton in a close second. Others in action included Pete Rios and Sung Kim. Play was set to continue until a winner was crowned.

The next WSOP-C stop in Rincon near San Diego was in full swing as the week began. After Alexandru Masek took down Event 1 as reported yesterday, Mike Souza won Event 2, a $365 NLHE event with 157 players and a $47,100 prize pool. Souza won $12,718 and the ring. Matthew Schultz then won Event 3, the $365 HORSE event, for more than $7K out of a field of 71 players.

Maria Ho to Join Heartland Poker Tour

The ninth season of the Heartland Poker Tour is set to begin in January 2013, and the announcement came today that poker pro Maria Ho will join the broadcast team for the new year. She will travel to all of the HPT stops across the United States aside fellow commentator Fred Bevill.

The HPT tournaments are televised and broadcast to more than 100 million households in the United States each week, and an expansion of the distribution beyond US borders is planned for 2013. The first 2013 event will be the Card Player Cruise in January.