WPT Niagara - Lucky Canadians or Hard Work?
I found some interesting stats on www.thehendonmob.com pertaining to the top Canadian finishers in the recent WPT North American Championship. Although most of the top ten Canadian finishers are fairly unknown, most have been slugging it out for years at various WPT/WSOP events. Here is a rundown of their top previous finishes. Goes to show you, it takes a lot of hard work, and determination to finish in the top ten places of a major event. Although, the winner Soren Turkewitsch seems to be an unknown with little if any previous WPT/WSOP experience:
1. Soren Turkewitsch - no other major tournaments noted
2. Jason Sagle - 5th $2k Limit Holdem WSOP July 06
- 23rd 2004 WSOP $10k main event
3. John Lam - no details available (incorrectly listed as American living in California)
4. James Worth - 4th $10k WSOP NLH Feb 2005
6. Mark Karam - 4th EPT Grand Final NLH March 2006
9. Steve Black - 27th WPT Championship event Sept 2005
To see the full listing of their tournament history, go to the following link:
http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/event.php?a=r&n=24532
1. Soren Turkewitsch - no other major tournaments noted
2. Jason Sagle - 5th $2k Limit Holdem WSOP July 06
- 23rd 2004 WSOP $10k main event
3. John Lam - no details available (incorrectly listed as American living in California)
4. James Worth - 4th $10k WSOP NLH Feb 2005
6. Mark Karam - 4th EPT Grand Final NLH March 2006
9. Steve Black - 27th WPT Championship event Sept 2005
To see the full listing of their tournament history, go to the following link:
http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/event.php?a=r&n=24532
Comments
Mark Karam has a sponsorship deal with eurolinx with a very busy poker schedule. I believe he isn't going to play in Amsterdam since has been drained from playing in Niagara.
November 3 - 11 - Master Classics of Poker - Amsterdam, Holland
November 20 - 26 - B.C. Poker Championships - Vancouver, B.C.
January 6 - 19 - Aussie Millions - Melbourne, Australia
February 21 - 24 - EPT French Open - Deauville, France
March 28 - April 1 - EPT Grand Final - Monte Carlo, Monaco
PokerJah, there may indeed be a John Lam in California but it isn't the dude who hit payday at Niagara. To live the poker life
Edit: Oh I lied I have heard of Jim "KrazyKanuck" Worth also.
Before I watched the final table, I thought that John Lam was the WPT TV finalist from California, but it turned out to be Popkorn from the forum. He won $28,000 at the Great Blue Heron Casino in March.
With John Juanda short stacked and using all-ins as his only move, Jason "Big Bird" Sagle played the best at the final table. I was surprised to find out that he has had even more tournament cash-ins than professional Jim "Krazy Kanuck" Worth, who can be seen on the CPT TV shows. Jason did the best bluff and the best traps. Unfortunately for him, he got bad beats against Soren heads-up.
I have met several people at the cash games who play casual games with auto worker Soren, and they couldn't believe that such an ordinary player won. Just like Chris Moneymaker, it was his first major tournament, but he turned a $90 satellite into $1.35 million!
The WPT Niagara was my first big buy-in tournament. I've only been taking poker a bit more seriously starting from the beginning of the year, playing 2-3 times/week, and reading up on poker books. And it was April of this year not March (I think there was a mixup on that info too, lol) that I won the GBH "Poker Challenge" tournament. I was able to get away with a few bluffs, but the audience never got to see those, but you'll see them on tv.
But poker's going to take a backseat for a bit since I'm still in the process of starting up a new business and that's extremely time consuming. Only big tournament I'm considering for next year is the WSOP. And you'll probably still see me play occasionally in the cash games at the local casinos.
There was a tremendous amount of skill towards the end of the tournament. I think Sagle definitely played extremely well for a "relative unknown" and I was very surprised that he did not take it down once he got down to the final 3.
Juanda just had no chips and he did what he could with what he had. A big surprise for me was that J'Daggs did not make the T.V. final table. He made a HUGE blunder against Sagle when they were at the tournament final table (8 players or so remaining). I had observed that, when they got down to the tournament FT, Sagle had switched gears and was playing very close to the chest so I have no idea why D'Agostino chose to get so far out of line with a draw when faced with obvious resistance from Sagle.
Anyway it was a great time and for what it's worth I can assure you that there is a hefty pool of very talented Canadian players out there that you may not have heard of yet, but definitely will come to know very soon.
Hey Luckystrike, thanks! Wow those Gitoni days were fun, have we played before?
Hey Popkorn...
Let us know what event(s) you are playing at the WSOP. I have just booked my vacation time, flights and hotel. Maybe we can meet for a drink and to share some thoughts on the NAPC.
So far, I only have the main event planned, but I would like to play in others, it all depends on how much time I can take away from my business. Btw, any chance you know what the 2007 WSOP schedule is?
As for drinks, I would love to grab a beer with you forum guys and meet the rest of you, just let me know a time and a place.
yea was just about to ask you what the last guy said about upcomming tourneys... think u're going to do any gbh ones? i'm probably going to try a few of those and may try the smallest field at the wsop 2007 ($1000 freezeout towards the end of series), the sched isn't out yet but i'm just going by the 2006 sched
just curious, what was the field at wpt niagara and did u buy in urself or sat.?
Only this so far...
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/news/fullstory.sps?inewsid=375561&itype=&iCategoryID=1514