This Week in Poker: August 25 – 31

In the PokerGuru feature ‘This Week in Poker’ we bring to you the weekly round up of the biggest online scores by Indian MTT players along with the top stories from both the live and online poker circuit.

Here are this week`s top stories

Online Railbird Report

Yet another eventful week for the Indian MTT camp has come to pass. Once again several players finished in the money though it’s been a while since we have reported a major online win by an Indian player. One player who stands out this week and claims the title of the ‘PokerGuru Star of the Week’ is our young gun -Mumbai based Kavish ‘KavishK’ Kukreja. Kavish has been on a heater of sorts with several deep runs the last couple of weeks and his total cashes this week saw a big jump when he won $4,306.63 by placing 4^th in the PokerStars ‘The Hot $75 [Turbo], $30K GTD’.

Another notable and last week`s star Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain continued his good form this week too with yet another big tournament score. Amit bagged $2,566 in the PokerStars ‘$77 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Turbo], $7.5K GTD’.

Others sharing the limelight this week by topping the cashes list on PokerStars include:

– Akash ‘profishnal’ Malik who won $2,338.90 for his 12^th place finish in the PokerStars ‘$215 Sunday 2nd Chance, $175K GTD.’

– Prateek ‘pb106’ Bhartia who won the PokerStars ‘$33 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Turbo,500 Cap], $10K GTD’ for $2331.

– Sahil ‘AntiloG’ Agarwal collected $1,971 for 4th place finish in the PokerStars ‘$55 NL Hold’em, $17.5K GTD’.

– Bhuvan ‘sweetu75’ Bansal made a 6^th place finish in the PokerStars ‘The Hot $16.50 [Turbo], $25K GTD’ for $ 1,714.

– Aditya ‘donkab0mber’ Sushant won the PokerStars ‘$51 NL Hold’em [Hyper-Turbo], $5K GTD’ for a $1,637 payday.

– Arjun ‘4better’ Pasricha won $1,354.10 for 18^th place finish in the PokerStars ‘$215 Sunday 2nd Chance, $175K GTD’.

– Team mentor Aditya ‘Intervention’ Agarwal scored a 6^th place finish in the PokerStars ‘The Hot $109 [Turbo], $10K GTD’ for $1,045.

One of the biggest online series this year – WCOOP is just a week away and with a host of events and massive guarantees, this promises to be a cracker of a series. Well its on PokerStars so we know what to expect! Keep watching this space for updates from the WCOOP.

Claudio Di Giacomo Wins the PokerStars.IT IPT Nova Gorica 1 Season 5 Main Event

After two successful events of this season IPT San Marino and IPT Sanremo, the third event of the tour concluded recently with IPT Nova Gorica – Accumulator. Italy’s first poker tour is hosting its season 5 and two more stops remain before the season’s wrap.

The PokerStars.IT IPT Nova Gorica main event concluded on Aug 27^th crowning Italian player Claudio Di Giacomo as the champion. Di Giacomo beat a field of 715 players in Nova Gorica, where the Italian Poker Tour generated a €436,937 prize pool. The Italian player took home a €90,000 first prize and the IPT trophy after he agreed a deal with his final two opponents. Di Giacomo’s heads up opponent was Team PokerStars Pro Pierpaolo Fabretti who took second place for €70,000. The final action saw Di Giacomo go all-in with [Kh] [9c] called by Fabretti with [7h] [7c]. That was the board: [9s] [4ch] [2h] [3h] [8s].

A businessman by profession, Claudio Di Giacomo is an Italian player who plays on PokerStars.it with the UserID “Cladigia”. IPT next stop will be in Sanremo 24 – 28 October 2013 for the fourth stop of Season 5 and satellites on PokerStars.it started on Monday 26th August.

Final table payouts

Richard Thousand Wins the Horseshoe Poker Classic

The 2013 Horseshoe Poker Classic in Council Bluffs scheduled to run from Aug 17^th – Aug 21^st culminated with its main event, Horseshoe Poker Classic $1,000 Main Event. The event attracted a total of 126 players and after two days of action, Richard Thousand of Ankeny, Iowa emerged victorious to capture the $30,798 first-place prize and a Horseshoe Poker Classic trophy.

Despite the fact that Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Main Event overlapped the Horseshoe Classic, the event drew a good number of players including the well-known poker player Phil Mander (who finished 43^rd at this year’s WSOP ME). In fact, the main event drew higher numbers as compared to last year when only 97 players registered for the event despite a lower buy in of $900 as compared to this year’s buy–in of $1,000.

The five event series had buy-in’s ranging from $150 to $1000 and at all the events apart from the main event, winners were crowned in one day. The winner of the main event emerged after two days of poker action where Richard Thousand defeated Thomas Lutjens heads-up for the title.

Horseshoe Poker Classic $1,000 Main Event Payouts

The Inaugural WPT Aplha8 Crowns Steven Silverman as the Champion

The first ever World Poker Tour Alpha8 $100,000 buy-in event, sponsored by ClubWPT.com, concluded at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Florida. WPT Alpha8 is an exclusive series of high-stakes, televised poker tournaments held at the most prestigious gaming resorts around the world and made its debut this year.

On Tuesday, the final nine players returned to play down to one final champion and after seven levels of action, Steven Silverman took down the event to win the prestigious championship title along with the $891,660 payday. Silverman defeated poker pro and chip leader of WSOP 2013 November Nine, JC Tran in heads-up play. The California-native, Tran earned $526,890 for finishing second in the Alpha8 event.

This year has been great for the Washington, DC poker pro, Silverman who won his second high roller event this year (In May, he won the €25,000 High Roller at the 2013 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final for €775,400).

The event attracted 18 players with the $100,000 buy-in, three of whom re-entered for an additional $100k. Four places in total were paid at this year’s WPT Alpha8.

Final Table Payouts