Taghavi, Maloney Score Trophies in Monday PPT Action

Monday action at PPT #1 saw two one-day games play out to trophies. The main game on Monday was the $450 NLH, while on the side, the NLH/PLO Mix game played out.

The main game saw almost 100 entries by the time registration closed, putting more than $37k into the prize pool, with 10 players taking a share of that money. Meanwhile, later in the day, the NLH/PLO Mix game in the evening saw 75 entries for $21,825 in prizes and 8 paid spots.

Brad Bishop is still leading the Player of the Series race with 8 games in the books now. He scored his top spot on the back of his chopped win in the biggest game so far, Event #3, as well as another cash from Event #5, giving him 196 points so far. David Kang & Jeff Forester, who were also part of the deal at the end of Event #3, are second and third. Mehmet Siginc, who has two cashes so far this series, including 3rd in the NLH/PLO Mix from Monday night, has jumped to 4th on the list now.

Player of the Series Top Ten through 8 Events

Shawn Taghavi Takes Event #7 Trophy After Deal

Event #7: $450 NLH ($400 + $50)

• Entries: 98
• Prizes: $37,235
• Winner: Shawn Tgahavi ($8,301 after deal)

The $450 NLH game on Monday got nearly 100 entries for prizes of more than $37k. That put more than $10k up top for the winner based on the original prizes, but the final three players decided to chop up the money at the end, and end the tournament early.

That left Shawn Taghavi with the win and the biggest prize of $8,301, while Michael Antal took second for $7,680 and Robert Nicklin pocketed $6,668 for 3rd place. Deven Lane from Regina just missed out on the deal in 4th place, after running his stack back up from just a few thousand to 4th place.

It was more than 12 hours from start to end in this one, with the final deal taking place at about 1:30 AM. The final table was a bit of a strange affair — usually, the short stacks bust to give the bigger stacks more chips. In Monday’s main game, however, the reverse was true — big stacks were tending to get decimated, then bust.

First, it was Daniel Luczyk, who held the big stack going into the final table, but then got run over by the deck to end in 7th place. That left Eric Josselyn as the big stack, but he suffered the same fate. He was over 1 million with play 7 ways, but the deck destroyed him to end his run in 5th place.

Final Results from $450 NLH

Stefan Maloney Gets Another Score in NLH/PLO Mix

Event #8: $340 NLH/PLO ($300 + $40)

• Entries: 75
• Prizes: $21,825
• Winner: Stefan Maloney ($6,420 after deal)

Sometimes, a player seems to dominate certain formats, and that is clearly the case for Stefan Maloney in the NLH/PLO Mix format. Maloney picked up the win in Event #8 on Monday night after an epic heads-up battle with Leo Zhang, but that was far from Maloney’s first big score in the format.

Three of his four recorded live wins are in this game, and he also has another 7 final table appearances playing with both two and four cards. It seems pretty clear that this is Maloney’s game to lose most of the time.

The game played pretty quickly, down from 75 entries to the final table in about 6.5 hours. After that, it was another 4 hours before the winner was decided, and 90 minutes of that was the head-to-head punchout between Maloney and Zhang.

Mehmet Siginc hit the rail for 3rd place at about 3 AM, after holding the chip lead three ways for a while. He lost some chips to Zhang when his kings held against a shove from Siginc with ace-jack, then left him short when he went to Broadway to cap Siginc’s two pair. Siginc was out in 3rd shortly after.

That set up the epic battle between Zhang and Maloney. As a clear indication of the passion for the game from both players, the epic battle wasn’t even for all the money. The final two agreed to an even chop of the money when heads-up began, leaving $200 and the trophy on the table to play for.

And play for it, they did. They spent nearly 90 minutes fighting it out, with Zhang on his heels the whole way. Maloney was the big stack throughout, but Zhang kept finding ways to survive. He was all-in, at risk, and well behind at least five times during the final phase, before getting there to survive. In one example, he was dominated with queen-three into queen-ten, only to find two pair to survive.

The trey was Zhang’s friend for most of the night. He found another survival double when he was in rough shape in PLO, with ace-jack-nine-three with clubs against ace-jack-jack-seven with hearts, but he managed to find two pair again with his nine-three to stay alive.

By the time the game finally ended at 4:30 AM, they were down to less than 10 big blinds average, with blinds at 50k/100k/100k and only 1.875 million in play, but even in the final hand, Zhang threatened to get there again. Maloney flopped top pair with a club draw after he potted preflop, and Zhang called, leaving himself with very little behind. The rest went in on the flop, with Zhang drawing very live to diamonds.

Maloney’s top pair held this time, however, and the game was finally over. While Maloney only made an extra $200 for his day’s work, he was very excited at being able to bring a trophy home to his daughter.

Final Results from NLH/PLO Mix