When the World Series of Poker Circuit returned from the pandemic break, it set a rather cautious schedule. There were a dozen or events on that schedule, starting after the 2021 WSOP ended in Las Vegas in mid-November. From there, the tour hit some standard stops across the United States but did veer off to Aruba in the Caribbean. As 2021 began, a Middle America stop at Choctaw got it going, and the WSOP quickly added more locations for the tour. There were more international stops to break up the US schedule.
Our last look at the WSOP Circuit recapped events at Horseshoe Tunica and Isle Pompano.
Since then, the WSOP-C wrapped tour stops at Harrah’s Cherokee, the Bicycle Casino, Bally’s Las Vegas, and Turning Stone. The Sint Maarten series also wrapped, but the WSOP has yet to upload the results. Let’s check out this rundown of results.
WSOPC Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina
As so many other live poker tournament stops on this Circuit and others, this Harrah’s Cherokee event started off by crushing its guarantees. Event 1 was a $400 buy-in with a $25K guarantee. But with 475 entries, the prize pool jumped to more than $156K. Event 2 had the same buy-in but a $500K guarantee, but the multi-flight event even crushed that one with more than 3,300 entries and a prize pool that topped $1.1M.
Players cannot get enough live poker these days.
The Main Event was a $1,700 buy-in with a $1M guarantee. But two starting days delivered 1,402 entries in total and sent the prize pool soaring to $2,124,030.
A player named Mark Davis started Day 2 with a below-average stack, ranking 131st out of the 225 returning players. As that day turned to night, though, Davis found himself as one of the top stacks. With fewer than three tables remaining, Davis eliminated two players in one hand. That put him atop the leaderboard with 18 players remaining.
Davis started Day 3 strong by eliminating a player, but several short stacks doubled through him. Despite that, Davis took 11M chips to the final table, followed in the distance by Dale Roesel with his 8.75M stack. Over the next rounds, though, Davis lost his lead and more than half of his stack. His night became a roller coaster as Adam Ney ousted Chris George in third place to take a significant lead to heads-up. Davis didn’t find much momentum at first, but he doubled to 10M and soon after doubled into the lead. The two switched places several times before Davis and his A-9 beat the deuces of Ney with trips.
Davis won his first WSOP Circuit ring.
A Southern California tournament always brings the players, many of them recognizable faces. Players like Ethan Yau and Kim Possible won ring events during this series.
These fields also left the guarantees in the dust. Event 1 beat the $60K guarantee with a $152K prize pool. And Event 2 more than doubled its $200K guarantee with a total pot worth more than $407K.
The Main Event offered no guarantee, though. It did bring in 550 entries over two starting flights, for a prize pool of $833,250. Michael Jozoff entered Day 2 in 14th place on the leaderboard of 87 players. As players like Roland Israelashvili and Jessica Vierling made it into the money, Jozoff hung in there and eliminated a few players later into the night. But he ended that night sixth of the eight final table players.
Jozoff had a plan on Day 3, and it worked. He doubled through Corey Brass and later busted players in sixth and fifth places. Jozoff took a two-to-one lead into heads-up play against Eugene Tito, though the latter did gain ground quickly. Jozoff didn’t let that stand, though, and busted Tito with pocket kings that held up to A-T.
Jozoff won his first gold ring.
This series began as the others had before it. Event 1 nearly doubled the $50K guarantee, and Event 8 nearly tripled its $50K promise. Solid turnouts delivered rings to veterans like Stan Jablonski and some international players like David O’Callaghan of Ireland and David Baba of Canada.
When the Main Event came around, the starting flights delivered 468 entries. It wasn’t the best turnout of recent WSOP Circuit events but still set the prize pool at $709,020, well beyond the $500K guarantee. Day 2 of the tournament brought 77 players back to the tables with big names like Jim Collopy, Ryan Riess, Jared Jaffee, and Ryan Laplante among them. After bursting the money bubble and eliminating much of the field, only 17 players went on the dinner break. When they returned an Italian named Andrea Buonocore started eliminating opponents.
By the time the field thinned to just 10 players at one table, Buonocore and Eric Baldwin had similar leading stacks. He ended that night third of the five players remaining, though. Buonocore didn’t take long on Day 3 to double through Baldwin twice to stay in business. The Italian then busted the fifth-place finisher and doubled through Collopy. He suffered setbacks but never stopped fighting. He ended up busting Collopy in fourth place and Timothy Chang in third. Buonocore took the lead into heads-up and built on it. Rather quickly, Baldwin put his stack at risk with K-4 suited, but Buonocore had pocket sevens that made a set on the river for the win.
Buonocore won his first WSOPC gold ring.
This was a new stop for the Circuit, and players on the East Coast couldn’t have been happier. Event 1 offered a $25K guarantee but ended up with a $133,980 prize pool with 406 entries. The second event performed similarly well, beating the $200K guarantee with more than 2,100 entries and prize pool surpassing $700K.
Turning Stone and the WSOP Circuit clearly made a good match.
The Main Event kicked off with a $500K guarantee, but the two starting days brought 891 entries into play. The resulting prize pool was $1,349,865 and enough to pay out the top 134 players. When the Day 1 action settled, a player named Joe Rice was at the top of the chip counts, far above the rest of the field. As Day 2 played deep into the money, Matt Eng had the lead. Rice wasn’t far behind. He struggled a bit through the day but ended with an average chip stack, fifth out of the final 13.
Day 3 started with Tim O’Donoghue as the chip leader, and he was in that position when the field thinned to just one table. Bob Hover was in a close second, and Rice was the shortest stack of the ten players. Rice quickly doubled through Eng and started chipping up right away. While Hover moved into the lead, Rice was close behind. O’Donoghue departed early, and Rice sent Eng out in seventh place. Rice eliminated Jared Woodell in sixth, John Amoia in fourth, but Hover doubled through Rice as Giuseppe Galluzzo soared into the lead. Rice finally busted Hover but took only 5.68M into heads-up against the 21M of Galluzzo. Rice chipped up slowly before doubling into the lead. The two exchanged the lead over the next few hours until Rice pulled away. Galluzzo finally pushed with J-7, but Rice had A-Q, which held up for the win.
Joseph Rice won his second WSOP gold ring…in the same series. He had won Event 1 of this WSOP-C tour stop, which was his first ring.
As mentioned, the Caribbean tour stop finished nearly two weeks ago, but the WSOP has yet to post the full results. King’s Resort in the Czech Republic is hosting its Circuit series now, and Harrah’s Cherokee is doing another one in North Carolina this month. And the Casino Barriere Le Croisette is hosting a French stop in Cannes that will run through the rest of April.
From there, the tour heads to a four very different locations.
