Poker Tournaments Weekly Round-up — May 12, 2017
By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated May 19, 2017

Pokerstars Championship In Monte Carlo Main Event Ends In A Chop
Italian pro Raffaele Sorrentino takes the honours, but a more moderate cash prize
The Pokerstars Championship in Monte Carlo Euro 5,300 buy-in NLHE main event has concluded with a victory for Italian ace Raffaele Sorrentino after a heads up tussle with German pro Andreas Klatt.
Due to a heads-up stage chop between the two finalists, Sorrentino took home Euro 451,714 instead of the scheduled first prize of Euro 500,800, but was still a happy man.
There were 727 players in the event, generating a prize pool well over guarantee at Euro 3,525,950.
When Russia’s Andrey Bondar was eliminated at third for Euro 271,500, Sorrentino and Klatt agreed a chop that gave Sorrentino as chip leader Euro 451,714 and Klatt Euro 402,768, leaving Euro 15,000 for the winner.
At first it appeared that the heads up would be a lengthy affair between two equally strong players, but in fact it was done and dusted in just under two hours after 29 hands as the Italian extended his lead and finally eliminated his last opponent.
Pokerstars events exec, Ed Stuchly wound up the ceremonies by proclaiming the inaugural Championships in Monte Carlo a success, revealing that over 10,000 entries had been recorded across the diversity of events that had been organised, attracting top players from all over the world.
The High Roller competitions proved especially entertaining and attractive to professional players during the Championships.
Major pay-outs went to Bryn Kenney (Euro 1,874,500) and Vlacheslav Buldygin (Euro 1,290,800) who came first and second in the Euro 100,000 buy-in Super High Roller. Then Julian Stuer defeated John Juanda to win the 3-day Euro 25,000 High Roller event for Euro 1,015,000, and Adrian Mateos (Euro 908,000) took down the Euro 50,000 buy-in event (see previous InfoPowa reports).
‘Timex’ McDonald Wins The Partypoker High Roller
Canadian pro celebrates a home-ground victory
Canadian online and live poker pro Mike “Timex” McDonald boosted his career earnings to $13.3 million over the weekend when he took down the $10,300 buy-in High Roller competition at the Party Poker Million North America festival at the Playground Poker Club outside Montreal, claiming the main prize of $200,000.
After a rather slow start the event pulled in a total of 53 entries, making for substantial cashes for the final six players from a prize pool of $530,000.
Final table action started with fellow-Canadian Marc-Olivier Carpentier-Perrault in charge, a position he managed to maintain for the most part until the dismissal of Sorel Mizzi at third for $84,100.
Facing McDonald in the heads up with a slight lead, Carpentier-Perrault appeared confident and aggressive in an action-packed finale that saw the lead change several times over the course of an hour before McDonald managed to establish supremacy on the back of a major cooler that set his rival back, and win the game.
Carpentier-Perrault’s worthy opposition was rewarded with a runner up prize worth $130,000.
Other cashes included:
Roberto Romanello $50,000
Benoit Galland $30,000
Vishal Singh Maini $20,000
The attention of the railbirds in Montreal is now on the $5,300 buy-in Main Event which is at the Day 1B stage and guarantees a million dollar first place prize and a $5 million prize pool.
Deepstacks India Will Be First Event In WPT-Adda52 Partnership
April 15 partnership agreement delivers first events
A partnership agreement between World Poker Tour and the Indian online poker enterprise Adda52 in the Gaussian Network group (see previous InfoPowa report) came to fruition this week with the first event announcement.
The two companies are to present a new Indian tournament branded WPTDeepStacks India.
“WPTDeepStacks India will be an exceptionally unique event since the tournament will be held onboard a floating ship,” said Anuj Gupta, founder and CEO of Adda52.com, in a press release. “As poker’s premier mid-major tournament circuit, WPTDeepStacks is the perfect fit for the Indian poker community.”
WPT is also sponsoring a new WPT India Player of the Year Award, with global tour exec Angelica Hael revealing in a media statement that India’s population of 1.3 billion is “one of the most important territories in the global poker landscape”.
“Together with our partner Adda52.com, the WPT looks forward to not only sharing the WPT experience through the expansion of WPTDeepStacks to the region, but also giving Indian players incremental value with the WPT India Player of the Year award,” Hael said.
WPTDeepStacks India will run from Nov. 7-13, and includes a $1,000 buy-in Main Event, the final qualifying event of 2017 for the WPT India Player of the Year Award.
Past Poker Tournaments Articles from May 2017