Card Player Poker Tour Los Angeles Swing Underway

One year has passed since the Card Player Poker Tour awarded more than $2.3 million to poker players across Los Angeles. Action this year begins Sept. 21 when the first tournament of the 2015 CPPT Los Angeles swing got underway at the Bicycle Casino. Action will continue until Oct. 25 when the main event wraps up at Hollywood Park Casino.

More than $750,000 was awarded in the main events alone the previous time around, and even more is expected in 2015.

In all, the Bicycle series will feature 19 tournaments, including a six-day $235 no-limit hold’em $200,000 guarantee and a seven-day $235 no-limit hold’em $300,000 guarantee. The schedule also features no-limit hold’em deepstack and bounty tournaments and non-hold’em events, including H.O.R.S.E and Omaha eight-or-better.

The marquee event of the series is the $1,100 no-limit hold’em $500,000 estimated guarantee main event using the Bike’s own Quantum Reload concept.

Players will have the option to buy-in directly for $1,100 on any of the three starting days, but those who wish to skip day 1 altogether can buy directly into day 2 for $4,300. Players that choose the latter option will begin with 60 big blinds with blinds at 1,000-2,000. There will be no-late entry on day 2, however players who are eliminated on any day 1 may re-enter the following day.

“The Quantum Reload concept is one tournament where you can come in different times, pay different amounts of money, and get different amounts of starting tournament chips,” said tournament director Mo Fathipour. “It’s the ability for the player to choose his or her day to play, depending on what day you choose dictates the amount of the buy-in and the amount of each starting stack. For the bigger tournaments, the players are coming on day two paying more money and starting with more chips.”

Each of the main event’s three starting days and day 2 will begin at 12 pm. The final day will begin at 2 pm and the final table will be streamed on Live at the Bike.

The CPPT has stopped at the Bicycle Casino two times in the tour’s history, crowning Thomas Beckstead and Shan Jing as main event champions. Beckstead left with $102,010 for his main event win, while Jing earned $135,981. Frank Ghezel left the 2014 CPPT series at the Bike as one of the biggest winners on the all-time CPPT money list. Ghezel won $192,202 after besting a field of 3,957 players in the $160 no-limit hold’em $1 million guarantee, placing him sixth on the tour’s all-time money list.

Hosting its second CPPT event, Hollywood Park Casino has upped the ante. Tournaments at the LAX-area casino will be more plentiful and feature larger prizepools this time around. Nearly doubling the schedule from seven events in 2014 to thirteen events in 2015, HPC also increased the buy-in for the main event to $500 and the guaranteed prizepool to $150,000. The series will feature an Omaha hi-lo tournament and no-limit hold’em bounty tournaments, another change from 2014.

Play will begin Oct. 16 with a $160 no-limit hold’em $15,000 guarantee tournament and finish with the $500 no-limit hold’em $150,000 guarantee main event Oct. 22-25.

The main event will consist of three starting days with 30-minute levels beginning at 12 pm. Day 2 will begin at 2 pm and feature 40-minute levels until the final table is reached. The final table will play out on the same day, however levels will increase to 60 minutes. Players will begin with 30,000 in tournament chips and can re-enter or register until the beginning of level 9. Each day one will end when only ten percent of the field remains, meaning all day 2 players will be in the money. Levels on day 2 will begin at the earliest ending level of the day ones. Players may also qualify up to three times and combine their chips.

In 2014, Tigran Manukyan outlasted a field of 345 players over the course of three days and took home $30,005 and the title of CPPT Champion after defeating Massoud Eskandari heads-up. The tournament proved an uphill endeavor for Manukyan, who was one of 36 players still remaining on the final day of play and he began the final table of nine sixth in chips. By the time heads-up play began, Manukyan found himself in a 3-2 chip deficit to Eskandari. He was able to find the needed to momentum to win and, by the time Eskandari moved all in for the last time with Q 9, Manukyan called with A 6 and found a full-house on a K K 6 2 6 board to end the inaugural CPPT Hollywood Park main event.

CPPT Hollywood Park Final Table Results
1st Tigran Manukyan $30,005
2nd Massoud Eskandari $17,080
3rd John Hulett $11,905
4th Richard Soares $8,485
5th Hillery Kerby $6,210
6th Jason Kim $4,140
7th Estrella Baltazar $3,105
8th Daniel Houlbrook $2,070
9th Huy Pham $1,555

CPPT Bicycle Casino Final Table Results
1st Shan Jing $135,981
2nd Amit Makhija $135,980
3rd Zaher Samaan $56,510
4th Adam Volen $43,115
5th Joshua Hale $35,765
6th Douglas Suyemoto $25,535
7th Cody Shedd $19,900
8th John Apikian $15,455
9th Tim Cramer $11,610