NPL - Allen Cunningham wins the Vegas Open Championship
Allen Cunningham wins the $15.000 Championship Event of the „National Poker League's Vegas Open“. Famous players like Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, John Juanda and Jamie Gold were also part of the game.
David Benyamine, Eli Elezra and Gavin Smith
were additional top players who did not want to miss out on this lucrative tournament.
Davis Singer also participated and became second. Toto Leonidas also made it to
the final table. A total of 57 players paid the $15,000 buy-in, and there was a
tremendous amount of stars in the tournament.
The final table itself lasted for 2 days. Originally, one final day was planned, but
the last six players played an exciting match, and no one wanted to give up.
The reason was that only the top five players received prize money, and it was
Mikael Thurity, the Bubbleboy, who ultimately had to go home empty handed.
Cunningham started the final table as chipleader and was able to lead until dinner break, which was reached by all
six players. As already mentioned, Mikael Thuritz had to leave the final table
after dinner, shortly followed by Evdakov. Singer made Evdakov leave at rank 5, and
at the same time took the chiplead away from Cunningham, who had not done well at the final
table thus far. After Toto Leonidas had to leave as number 4, the final was interrupted.
Three players were to come back the following day to determine the ultimate
winner. The three players left were Antonio Salorio, David Singer and Allen
Cunningham. Salorio had to leave first that day. Cunningham and Singer were
confronted heads-up, while Singer still had a great deal more chips than
Cunningham. Cunningham had returned to the final table as shortstack after
having handed over the chiplead to Singer. Until dinner Cunningham was able to regain
a large part of his chips and the tournament was over sooner than expected.
During the first hand after the break, Cunningham won the tournament and sent
Singer to rank 2. The prize was $325.105.
| NPL Vegas Open Championship Event |
||
| Rank |
Name |
Prize Money |
| 1 | Allen Cunningham | $325.105 |
| 2 | David Singer | $203.181 |
| 3 | Antonio Salorio | $130.042 |
| 4 | Toto Leonidas | $89.404 |
| 5 | Nikolay Evdakov | $65.021 |
| 6 | Mikael Thuritz | - |
What is the NPL?
The NPL is a series of large events all around the
globe. It started about two years ago and has since developed into an
international tournament series. NPL events are broadcasted on TV and are
directed especially towards younger players. The Asia Open, the Australian Open,
the United Kingdom Open as well as the Vegas Open are all part of the NPL. This
year they were able to get Dave Farra and famous Poker player Kirk Morrison as
commentators for the original English version.
The NPL Vegas Open consisted of six tournaments with buy-ins of approximately
$2.000 to $4.000. Additionally, satellites to the championship were offered for
about $1.000.
