Benton Blakeman Wins The PokerAtlas Tour Madness Kickoff Event At Resorts World

Benton Blakeman is primarily a cash-game player, but he made one of the few times per year he jumps into a tournament a good choice when he took down the title in the PokerAtlas Tour Madness Kickoff event at Resorts World on the Las Vegas Strip. Blakeman was awarded $42,460 as the winner to take his career tournament earnings up to $274,421.

Blakeman chatted for an exit interview about his path to victory and tournament experience here at the PokerAtlas Tour shortly after the win, and here is what he had to say. “Oh man, it was tough. I’ve been playing cash in between so it’s been like four or five days straight of 12-13 hour days. I don’t play many tournaments so this is different. I maybe play three or four tournaments a year. I’m mainly a cash-game player at Bellagio,” said Blakeman.

When he was asked about how he adjusted from his hours playing cash to tournaments so quickly, Blakeman responded, “It all just depends, but I usually play four to 10 hours. Yesterday I played for 13 hours because there was a big game that was a crazy game for a while at Bobby’s Room at Bellagio and I couldn’t leave. I did Bobby’s Room, came here and played the tournament, and then I went back and played Bobby’s Room cash and came back here to finish the tournament today.”

The marathon path led to victory for Blakeman, and he had this to say about switching gears from cash play to tournaments strategy-wise these last few days. “I really never study tournaments, so what I did was play a lot of cash-game strategy. I just got lucky, I didn’t take a lot of bad beats. I’m less aggressive than the rest of them, because I’m so used to playing deep-stack cash where you see a lot of flops and you have a lot more wiggle room. I had to be very careful preflop, which maybe wasn’t right, but it worked out,” said Blakeman.

When he approached the final match heads up, Blakeman stuck to his strategy until he found the right spot to open things up. “I approached it cautiously first just to see, but then when I found I was winning all the small pots I didn’t make big bluffs. But I kept stabbing at everything, and then finally a hand held up,” said Blakeman.

Blakeman also has a close tie to the PokerAtlas Tour that helped encourage him to come out and support his friend Jon Friedberg. “Jon is one of my best friends. I used to play a cash game here that they would host twice a week, and Jon and I have been close since 2011 when he brought me in as head instructor for All Vegas Poker before he bought PokerAtlas, so I came out here to support him. I’ve been with Jon for a long time, about 15 years. So I came here to support him when I found out they were doing the PokerAtlas Tour and it worked out,” said Blakeman to end the interview.

The total field of 526 entries built over six starting flights in the $500 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament surpassed the guarantee of $200,000 for a total prize pool worth $220,920. There were 45 players that returned for the final day of the event.

The field reached the final table rather quickly just a little after 7:00 pm from the 1:00 pm restart on the final day of the tournament. Blakeman was in the middle of the pack when the final table began, but he was able to score a double up with eight players remaining to start his rise to the top.

He took out Wade Citro in fourth place to join contention for the chip lead, but by the time the heads-up final began he was facing a deficit against Thomas Symonds. Blakeman began to pull into the lead, but then both players doubled up with Symonds ending up back in the lead after the dust settled.

Blakeman did start winning most of the small pots with no showdowns however to take the advantage once again, so he was ahead of Symonds when he got all in on the final hand holding AJ. Blakeman had him covered and dominated with AQ in the hole, and the board bricked out for the queen-kicker to hold. Symonds was eliminated in second place for a payday worth $29,860, and that got him up to just shy of $94,000 in tournament earnings.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded at the final table:

The PokerAtlas Tour stop at Resort World will continue until March 18th, with the $800 main event running from March 14-18. You can check out the full schedule for the tournament series right here.

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