Chris Karambinis turned out to be the champion of the $350 buy-in NL Hold’em tournament, the first event of the sixth edition of the Chicago Poker Classic (CPC), an annual live poker event. The tournament, which had eight starting flights, drew a field of 3,092 players who generated a prize pool as large as $1 million. Karambinis returned home with a first-place prize of $168,039.
The tournament included a bonus of $5,000 for all players who survived till Day 2. The player who lost the largest number of chips through double qualifying won $2,000 in cash and a seat worth $10,000 to the main event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP). As many as 11 players won the $5,000 bonus; and Matthew Kirby, the Mid States Poker Tour (MSPT) poker pro, lost the largest number of chips and won the WSOP main event seat.
The results are as follows. Chris Karambinis and Oleg Badmayev finished first and second, winning prizes of $168,039 and $103,104, respectively. Igor Hot, Jared Palmer, and Shawn Rice finished third, fourth, and fifth, winning $66,895, $46,208, and $32,806, respectively.
The players who finished sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth were Javier Figueroa ($24,114), Ryne Johnson Menasha ($17,723), Aaron Garrison ($14,512), Nick Jivkov ($11,882), and Andrzej Rogowski ($9,728).
The player field of over 3,000 generated a prize pool of exactly $927,600. The staff of Hammond, therefore, decided to contribute an extra $50,400 to the meet the guaranteed prize of $1 million.
Only 112 players survived into Day 2, which commenced at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday with Jacob Baumgartner as the chip leader. However, Jacob finished in the thirteenth place while Karambinis, who reached Day 2 with the second biggest chip stack, emerged as the last man standing. This is Karambinis’ third major poker victory as he has already won a couple of WSOP Circuit events.
The Main Event, with its buy-in of $1,500, started on May 9, offering a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million. Last year, it was Blake Bohn who emerged as the champion and won more than $288,000 for his efforts.
The Chicago Poker Classic 2014 includes a number of exciting events such as the $600 No Limit Hold’em, the $500 HORSE, the $350 No Limit Hold’em, and the $250 No Limit Hold’em Re-entry. The tenth and final event is going to be the $350 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Turbo event, which will be held at 12:00 p.m. on May 12.
