Avery Bass Wins First Stop on the 2014 Season of World Series of Poker Circuit
Avery Bass won the opening event of the later season of the World Series of Poker Circuit this last weekend. The tournament, which took place at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, begins the 11th season of the WSOPC.
Avery Bass won his first live tournament, which gave him $95,000 in winnings for the event. Brian Locklar came in second place and finished with $58,760. The total prize pool for the event was $500,000, as the $580 No-Limit Hold’em event had 958 entrants and 99 players who collected winnings.
World Series of Poker Circuit
The World Series of Poker Circuit has toured the United States every year since 2005. The WSOPC ends with the Circuit National Championship each year. From 2005 to 2010, the Circuit National Championship was an open event, but it is now closed to those who have scored a certain number of points over the past year.
To qualify, a player must have won a WSOPC Main Event or finished with the top points at one of the WSOPC tournaments throughout the year. The remaining spots go to those who have accumulated the most points on the tour for the year. Players also can enter if they rank in the Top 100 of the “WSOP World Rankings”, which takes account of a player’s finishes over the past two years.
WSOPC Palm Beach Main Event Final Table
Brian Locklar finished in 2nd and collected $58,760 in earnings, Howard Darnold finished in 3rd and had $43,370, and Maurice Hawkins finished in 4th and had $32,450. Jason Reep had the 5th place finish and took home $24,585 in winnings, while Devon Shalmi had a 6th place finish and collected $18,860.
Richard Davis II was 7th with $14,645, Joseph Dipascale was 8th with $11,515, and Brandon Newsome rounds out the final table with a 9th place finish and $9,160 in winnings.
Jamie Gold and Ylon Schwartz
The circuit events do not lure all of the top talent, but they do bring out a cross-section of the most succesful players. Several players of note had particularly good finishes in the Palm Beach Main Event.
Jamie Gold, the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event winner, finished in 17th place at the event. Ylon Schwartz, who has won WSOP and WSOPC events, finished in 23rd place.
Maurice Hawkins Finishes
Maurice Hawkins, who won the Millionaire Maker event in February, had a nice run to finished 4th at the event. Had Hawkins won, he would have collected a 5th gold ring from the WSOPC. He collected $32,450 for his fourth place finish. Maurice Hawkins considers himself a tournament poker grinder, but surprisingly, he never plays cash games.
Palm Beach joins Foxwoods Casino and Harrah’s Cherokee as the only venues to host two World Series of Poker Circuit events in one season. While the WSOP Circuit has a bit more prestige than its competitors, it is not the only professional poker circuit active in the late-summer each year in the USA. the Mid-Stakes Poker Tour is an alternative tour which has smaller (but not much smaller) prize pools and fewer names the average Texas hold’em tournament fan might have heard about.
Brian Zimcosky Wins 2014 Mid-Stakes Poker Tour Majestic Event
Brian Zimcosky on the Mid-Stakes Poker Tour Majestic Star event in Gary, Indiana, one of the suburbs of Chicago. Zimcosky’s victory was only his second cash at an event over the past three years. He does appear to be on a hot streak, because Zimcosky’s other winnings were earned at a MSPT event back in March 2014, in which he earned third place. Brian Zimcosky, who won $61,870 in first place earnings, is a Michigan resident.
To win the event, Zimcowsky defeated Alex Kaufman, Brad Sailor, Bob Chow, Gerald Siemienad, Paul Fisher, William Luciano, Mike Mustafa, Bryan Schultz, and Brad Rhodes at the final table. Chad Holloway, the Senior News Editor at PokerNews, also played the event.
When asked how he finished in 1st place, Zimcosky attributed his victory to three pivotal hands. He said, “I got it in three big flips, and I won all three.”
The next stop for the MSPT is at the Grand Falls Casino in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The poker events take palce from August 9 to August 17.
