Lebanese Poker Championship Round-Up

The first Lebanese Poker Championship was held recently in Casino Du Liban located in the town of Adna, about 30km from the Lebanese Capital of Beirut. The participation in this tournament went way beyond the expectation of the organizers as 207 players signed up, exceeding the initial 200 person cap.

In what was a originally $1 million guaranteed prize pool event, the large number of entries meant that the prize pool $10,000 buy-in Main Event ballooned to over $2 million. At the end of the 3 days, Nabil Matta was crowned as the first Lebanese National Poker Champion, and took home a prize of $606,000. Omar Geadah who was eliminated in second place earned $308,000.

Despite the relative newness of poker to the region, a few big names did show up to add some glamour to the proceedings. 2005 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Hachem (pictured left), who is more affably known as "The Champ" in Lebanon was present along with EPT champion Joseph Mouawad, South African pro Raymond Rahme and WSOP bracelet winner Nenad Medic. Hachem could not make it past the first day while the other pros were eliminated on Day 2.

Nabil Matta dominates the final table

The eventual champion Nabil Matta went into the final table with a healthy chip stack of 818,000, putting him in third place among the final nine. Matta however decided to step up his game when it came down to the final six. He took it upon himself to personally eliminate four of his opponents in second, third, fifth and sixth place.

The first to go was Fadi Kamar who was a local favourite pushed all in with and was called by Matta who had . Matta came out on top in the coin flip, as the board came , and was of no help to Kamar. He was knocked out in 6th and took home $115,500.

Walid Rizkallah was up next when Matta picked up against Rizkallah's . Rizkallah who was at the big blind pushed all in after Matta had put in a bet of 250,000 in the cutoff position. were dealt on the board and Matta's cowboys held up. He increased his chip count to 3.7 million as Rizkallah exited in fifth place for $134,800.

The final elimination of the night came via two pairs of relatively unspectacular starting hands. Desperately out-chipped by the dominant Matta, Omar Geadah decided that was good enough to go all in on the button. After asking for a count of his opponent's dwindling stack, Matta obliged and called with .

The flop came putting Matta well in the lead as he paired both his card.s However, Geadeh was not one to give up easily. He called for a T on a turn in the hopes of a runner-runner straight, but the that came was just as good. The river however was not as kind to him as the did him no favours and Omar Geadah was eliminated in second place.

Here are the top 10 finishers of the first Lebanese Poker Championship: