Las Vegas is known to host several renowned and highly lucrative poker tournaments that attract player traffic from all over the country.
The MGM Grand Casino, one of the most reputed casinos in Vegas recently hosted a large scale poker tourney event called the MGM Grand Challenge.
This event was won by Mike Del Vecchio, local poker player, who had featured as the chip leader right from the first day of the tournament.
Commenting on his win, Del Vecchio revealed an optimistic and confident attitude. “Everything went great.
I flopped well, just what you need to do to win tournaments. I was fortunate to run as good as I did, but I also played great,” he said.
Mike Del Vecchio had to go up against over a hundred poker players skilled in the game but somehow managed to secure the chip lead right from day 1. The main vent of the Challenge was a $1,600 poker tourney and the first place prize was $51,377. The fact that Del Vecchio won this event a day before he could celebrate his birthday is a great surprise.
“I’m going to play several WSOP events. Tournaments are where the glory’s at; I wouldn’t be talking to you if I had a good cash-game session, but cash games are still my bread and butter,”
Del Vecchio stated in regard to his future plans.
This series of the MGM Grand Challenge was directed by Matt Savage who is known for his skills in this department. Rob Moore, the poker room manager also worked on the event and instituted a few changes in the tourney to improve it.
Moore described a few of the changes that were instituted in the MGM Grand Challenge.
“Our first series in October of last year offered only no-limit hold’em events and most of the buy-ins were $340 or higher. This time around we created a schedule with a variety of tournaments and a wider range of buy-ins, starting at $150,”
The MGM Grand Challenge featured several types of poker tournament variants; these included the likes of Omaha poker events, Pot Limit Omaha poker, H.O.R.S.E poker, Stud poker, no Limit Texas Hold’em poker and even a Chinese Poker game. The MGM Grand Challenge also featured bounty tourneys, all in or fold poker tourneys and a mix-max set up of these events.
Tourney officials were happy with the event and its success. “We had great feedback from the customers regarding the variety of the schedule and we saw about a 50 percent increase in overall attendance.”
