Last night at the NAPT Los Angeles The Big Event at the Bicycle Casino it was tournament poker pro and philanthropist Victor Ramdin who managed to outlast Team PokerStars Pro and 2005 WSOP Main Event Champion Joe Hachem to win the championship, and pocket the $500,000 in first-place prize-money –meanwhile Hachem will have to settle for $300,000.
Obviously things would have likely worked out differently, but the people at PokerStars must be kicking themselves after withdrawing their sponsorship from what would then be renamed The Big Event, as two very high-profile poker players would survive to play heads-up for the title, including one of the faces of the company itself in Joe Hachem.
This marks Ramdin’s second win in 2011 –he took down the $1,500 NLHE tournament at the PCA in January—and puts his lifetime tournament earnings at $3.3 million according to www.thehendonmob.com. Ramdin dominated the tournament from about Day 2 on, almost always sitting at the #1 or #2 spot on the leader-board.
Ramdin is well-known as one of the most charitable players in poker, sending a good portion of his winnings to his native Guyana, so if you are going to root for anyone to win a poker tournament than Victor Ramdin is a very good place to start –Ramdin donates at least 25% of his tournament winnings to Guyanese charities, and often goes above and beyond this amount.
After winning $7.5 million for his 2005 WSOP Main Event win in 2005 Hachem has proven to be one of the better WSOP Champions during the “Boom” years, and now has over $11.3 million in career tournament earnings according to TheHendonMob.com. A victory at The Big Event would have marked Hachem’s first major tournament victory since his win in the 2006 WPT Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic.
Here is a look at the final table results from The Big Event at the Bike:
- Victor Ramdin — $500,000
- Joe Hachem — $300,000
- Jeremy Ausmas — $190,000
- Taylor von Kriegenbergh — $140,000
- Bryan Leskowitz — $100,000
- Govert Metaal — $75,000
- Jose De Noronha — $55,000
- Santiago Nadal — $35,327
The exact reason for PokerStars withdrawal as the event sponsors is not entirely clear, but stems from talks between the Bicycle Casino, PokerStars, and the California Gaming Commission over the role the online poker site would play as the tournament’s sponsor. It will be interesting to watch this development moving forward to other PokerStars NAPT stops in Las Vegas and Connecticut.
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- Canadian Jonathan Duhamel Wins 2010 WSOP Main Event - November 9, 2010
Written by Steve Ruddock on March 11th, 2011