As promised, here is a follow up article to the one I wrote last week about the first ever NAPT tournament, the Venetian Main Event. Given that this was the first PokerStars sponsored event in the U.S.A., it comes as no surprise that the final table was comprised of a few very talented online players.
This first NAPT event came to a finish just a few days ago. The $5k buy-in tournament wrapped up with eight players at the final table including two online tournaments pros, two online cash game pros, and a three time WSOP bracelet winner in “Miami” John Cernuto.
Sam “KingKobeMVP” Stein and Eric “ericb09” Blair led the way for the online tournaments pros, while David “dlpnyc21” Paredes and Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese represented the online cash pros. Sam Stein came into the final table with the chip lead, bringing in over 100 big blinds.
Stein continued his winning ways, outracing Blair’s pocket sevens with ace king to eliminate him in 8th. He followed that up by outrunning Cernuto’s ace five suited with jack ten suited, bringing the final table down to six. Even David Paredes’s pocket aces couldn’t hold versus Stein’s pocket jacks, as Stein flopped a jack to take Paredes out in fifth.
Stein had over half the chips in play with four left, but Yunus Jamal and Daniel Clemente were sent packing in a quick fashion by Tom Marchese, leaving Stein with approximately 16.4 million in chips, and Marchese with 9.5 million in chips going into heads-up play. Heads-up started with the blinds at 100k/200k 20000 ante.
Stein’s chip lead evaporated rather quickly at this point, and heads-up didn’t last long at all. Stein became well known during the tournament as someone who wasn’t a fan of folding as he rarely folded flops and he was willing to make thin calls. Those calls cost him as he doubled Marchese into the chip lead and subsequently lost the tournament, calling Marchese down with 2nd pair in the final hand when Marchese had top set.
See below for the handsome final table payouts. It’s safe to say that the first NAPT event was a great success at the Venetian, and we look forward to many more PokerStars sponsored events in North America.
1st: Tom Marchese – $827,648
2nd: Sam Stein – $522,306
3rd: Daniel Clemente – $309,366
4th: Yunus Jamal – $241,064
5th: David Paredes – $184,816
6th: Thomas Fuller – $144,639
7th: John Cernuto – $104,461
8th: Eric Blair – $60,266