| 2ND ANNUAL ST. MAARTEN OPEN SHOWS BIG GROWTH
Tournament poker returned to the beautiful Caribbean island of St. Maarten as the International Poker Federation staged its second annual St. Maarten Open at the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort-Casino.
And after word spread about last year’s successful event, the numbers for this year’s 15-day tournament soared dramatically.
The inaugural tournament attracted some 160 players. This year, Thomas Kremser, CEO of the IPF, said he expects about 250 entrants.
Planet Poker is sponsoring this event by paying for the ten $1,500 seats to the main event which will be awarded in two freerolls, half at today’s opening event, the second five on November 28. The pioneering Internet cardroom will have a booth to introduce its new marketing manager, Michael Yates, and well as unveil its new gaming software. In addition, Planet Poker gave away 30 seats to the main event in online tournaments.
Another 53 players got into the championship event via Party Poker satellites.
To qualify for the freeroll events, players had to register for a minimum of five events.
Before the tournament got underway, there was a traditional opening performance by native dancers in colorful garb. Tournament director Warren Karp attempted to interject a note of levity into the proceedings by welcoming players to the “First annual Strip Poker Tournament,” only to earn a stern shake of the head from Kremser. Anyway, Karp was behind the times because National Lampoon just filmed three strip-poker shows in Jamaica a month ago.
There were 114 entrants for today’s no-limit hold’em opener. Players started with $1,000 in chips, with blinds of $25-$25 and 20-minute rounds. First out, in the first hand, with 7-2, was Jani Vilmuney of Finland.
Barbara Enright, holder of three World Series bracelets and the only woman to make a WSOP championship final table, went out after suffering two bad beats. First, her sizeable stack of chips took a big hit when her pocket kings lost to A-K. Then, she was knocked out holding pocket queens. She made a small raise against a short-chipped player who had called all-in, making it appear as if she was on a blind steal.. Her strategy worked, because she lured a player with pocket 4s to move in, but he hit a 4 on the river.
When the final nine players assembled, they were playing with $100 antes, $400-$800 blinds, 14:03 remaining.
Two players were short-chipped. Kees De Korte, a card player from Leiden, Holland, had $5,700, and Buddy Ashmore, a retiree from Alberta, Canada who was the 2002 Canadian champion, had $5,900. On the first hand, Ashmore caught up when he moved in and
his pocket kings held up. Less fortunate with K-K was De Korte. On hand 11, with blinds of $600-$1,200 and $200 antes, he moved in for $3,000. Fari Badimansour of Birmingham, England called with A-7. A flop of K-4-2 made De Korte, with top set, about a 60-1 favorite. But he suffered a brutal beat when a 5 and 3, the only cards that could beat him, gave Badimansour a wheel.
Eight hands later, Mitch Kramer was all in with A-J. Holma Mikko of Stockholm, Sweden, a poker room manager, had pocket 9s and broke the New Jersey retiree by making a full house. Two of the four players to be eliminated were now gone.
Blinds now went to $800-$1,600 with $300 antes. Badimansour, who earlier was down to about $6,000 when his A-Q couldn’t catch Anthony Antoniou’s pocket 8s, continued to hang in, aggressively moving in and working his way back.
Other players were going all in and there no calls with everybody so close to winning a seat.
On hand 35, blinds went to $1,200-$2,400 with $400 antes, and overly tight play was no longer much of an option.
Sure enough, on that hand, Badimansour tried an all-in move from the cut-off seat with just Js-8s. He ran into the pocket queens held by Mick Davis, a company co-owner from Harlow, England, whose biggest win was $23,000 for 10th in an Aussie Million event. The board came K-10-5-9-10, Badimansour was out and each of the six finalists was one away from winning a seat.
All players had at least $15,000, but with antes and blinds costing $6,000 a round, that wouldn’t go very far.
On hand 41, Mikko moved in with pocket queens and Antoniou, another retiree who lives in London, called all in with A-10 suited. An ace flopped, and Mikko now was down to about $4,000. But he doubled up on the next hand when he moved in on the button and his pocket 6s held up against Ashmore, who called the raise from the big blind with K-8.
On hand 46, Antoniou raised to $10,000 and showed a 9-4 bluff when nobody called. With about $40,000 in chips, he seemed assured of a seat.
The next hand was the last one. Alex Tullis of Vienna moved in for $18,000. “I’ve got a pair,” he warned. Indeed he did — a pair of aces — but Antoniou finally called with Qd-7d. A queen flopped and a 7 turned. Tullis’ aces turned to ashes, and all remaining players had a seat. They were Davis, Mikko, Antoniou, Ashmore and Rumit Somaiya of Leicester, a properety developer who won event #3, $500 pot-limit hold’em, last year.
There was one final amazing statistic. Each of the winners, winner, from seats 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, was at the second half of the table. And will someone figure the odds of that happening?
—Max Shapiro
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