Spears Wins at Seneca, Bell Wins HPT Soaring Eagle

Andy Spears Wins Seneca Niagara Fall Poker Classic

The 2013 Fall Poker Classic was held at the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel. The three-day $1,500 buy-in NLHE Main Event wrapped up on November 25 with Andy Spears as the champion.

The tournament drew 149 entries for a prize pool of $194,110. That was enough to pay out the top 18 players and reserve more than $52K for the winner.

Day 1 thinned the field to 46 players, and Spears was the night’s chip leader. Day 2 burst into the money and found the final table, which happened when Hoss Colao exited in tenth place for $4,659.

Spears led the final table at the start with a massive stack of 1,549,000 chips, with Brian McCormick in a distant second with 507K and Ryan Hall on the short stack of 194K. Spears and McCormick soared during the action, both getting to heads-up play. Spears started with the chip lead, but the two traded it several times over the numerous hours of the battle. Finally, Spears took it down and claimed the title.

Results:

1^st place: Andy Spears ($52,410)

2^nd place: Brian McCormick ($32,610)

3^rd place: Alex Barker ($19,799)

4^th place: Johannes Mueller ($14,558)

5^th place: Budway Salhab ($10,870)

6^th place: Jason Nablo ($8,929)

7^th place: Travell Thomas ($7,861)

8^th place: Ryan Hall ($6,891)

9^th place: Scott Gaddi ($5,823)

Ron Bell Wins HPT Soaring Eagle

The Heartland Poker Tour was in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan over the weekend for its stop at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort. Action for preliminary events and satellites began on November 1, but the $1,650 Main Event just wrapped up on November 25 with Ron Bell in the winner’s circle.

The tournament had a total of 473 entries and prize pool of $678,120, out of which the top 45 players were paid. Joe Cada and Keith Baldwin were among those cashing in the event.

Bell went into the final table strong and played aggressively to eliminate many of his opponents. Eventually, he was heads-up against Andrew Beardsley, but Bell had a significant chip lead. And in nine hands, Bell took it down – from a $360 qualifier to nearly $160K.

Results:

1^st place: Ron Bell ($159,353)

2^nd place: Andrew Beardsley ($98,327)

3^rd place: Chuck Tonne ($64,421)

4^th place: Ben Grise ($44,756)

5^th place: Ardeshir Azadnia ($33,228)

6^th place: John Drikakis ($25,796)

7^th place: William Rogers ($22,210)

8^th place: Tonya Provost-Hawkins ($18,309)

9^th place: Dapreesch Scates ($14,919)