Simon Beauregard and Brian Kulp were both sponsored to play at the Caribbean Poker Tour in St Maarten this week after winning online satellite tournaments hosted by Intertops Poker and Juicy Stakes Poker. The two sponsored poker players are having quite different experiences at the tournament, though, as documented in their daily poker blog. Brian is out and off to the beach for the rest of the tournament, but Simon advanced to Day 2.
As two Caribbean Poker Tour players wrote in their blog yesterday, Day 1 at the CPT was an action filled day at the poker tables of the Casino Royale on Sint Maarten and the action kicked off with a $150+20 Turbo Satellite. The Freezeout tournament generated seven seats to the $1,100 CPT St Maarten Main Event and the 8th place finisher received a consolation prize of $740.
“So I’m out, while never really being in control of my destiny, mostly fighting against the blind,” Brian Kulp, one of two players to win his way to the CPT in online satellites hosted by Intertops and Juicy Stakes, wrote in the blog yesterday. “But still it was a great experience.”
In his blog posting yesterday, the other sponsored player, Simon Beauregard, explained his ultimately successful strategy for Day 1: “I’m trying to play pots in position so I can build them up when I have hands that can win a showdown. I don’t see the need in getting out of control stealing pots when the blinds are small.”
The highlight of the CPT so far had to be the $1,100 CPT St Maarten. Once the re-entry period was finished at the end of level six, 138 unique players and 12 re-entries made for 150 entries in total. The total prize pool of $145,500 will be split among the top 17 finishers with the minimum cash being worth $1,950 and the champion today will walk home with $41,000.
There were plenty of big names in such as Allyn Jaffrey and Barry Shulman, WPT champions Anthony Zinno, Jonathan Roy, Alain Medesan, Pieter de Korver and Mike Linster, however none of them made it through the end of level 10 to bag up chips. Plenty of other notables will return tomorrow at 5pm though such as Mihai Manole (37,400), Will “The Thrill” Failla (47,500), Dan Murariu (75,800), Allen Kessler (84,900), Jeremy Nock (95,500), WSOP tournament director Charlie Ciresi (106,300), Poker Royale boss Peter Hajszan (114,000), Martin Hanowski (115,200) and Sabina Hiatullah (163,600). Chip leader is Xuan Hien Cao from Canada with 174,900 and seven online and live qualifiers remain.
