PokerAtlas Tour Stops in Las Vegas

The PokerAtlas Tour just recently made a stop at Resorts World Las Vegas, and there was a big event that took place. Much of the attention was on the PokerAtlas Tour Madness Kickoff event, and there was a surprise winner who emerged victorious.

This event had a guaranteed prize pool of $200,000, but that pool ultimately went way up as there were 526 players that signed up for the action. With a relatively small buy-in of $500, there were some smaller players that decided to get in on the action.

One of those players was Benton Blakeman as he is a man that typically spends his time playing in cash tournaments at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Blakeman was able to emerge victorious at this event and took home $42,460 as the event winner.

While competing throughout this event, Blakeman was also getting in some cash games on the side, and that created some extremely long days. There were six flights of competitors when this tournament started, and just 45 players were invited back for the final day.

This win for Blakeman was not only a big surprise, but it was also significant to him in terms of value. Even with a win of more than $40,000 at Resorts World, Blakeman has still won less than $275,000 overall.

Blakeman Battled Back

There were points in this event where it looked as if Blakeman was not even going to make it to the final table, but he was able to win enough hands to get that done. He was in just fifth place when the final table started, but one big win allowed him to double up his money.

It was his elimination of Wade Citro in fourth place that really made winning this tournament a reality. Blakeman was still trailing the chip leaders, but he had made up some significant ground throughout the event.

It was Thomas Symonds that was in the lead when heads up play began, and it looked as if he was going to come away with the win. Blakeman was winning a bunch of smaller hands, but he was unable to take the chip lead away.

Ultimately Blakeman decided to go for the win when he was dealt an Ace, Jack hand, and he got significant help on the turn as well. When those cards turned up Ace, Queen, it was all but over for Symonds in this event.

This PokerAtlas Tour is going through March 18th, and there are some bigger events coming.

The Final Standings

Since the overall pot was much larger than expected, a number of players took home a significant win in this event. The top nine players all walked away with at least $4,200, and that’s not bad for a small buy-in.

Here is a look at the players that finished on the leaderboard and the money that was won.