Back in February, the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) officially made its United States debut at the Venetian. Tom Marchese was the winner of the inaugural NAPT Venetian Main Event and took home over $827,000. Now, the poker world turns its attention to the NAPT Mohegan Sun, which kicked off on Wednesday, April 7th.
The Mohegan Sun was built in 1996 by the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut and is considered to be one of New England’s best gambling destinations. It features fine dining, hotel accommodations, retail shopping, live entertainment, and sporting events. While husbands lose their paychecks at the poker tables, wives enjoy the luxurious day spa. The WNBA’s Connecticut Sun also makes their home at the Mohegan Sun’s sporting complex. There is over 300,000 square feet of gaming area available and 30 food and beverage outlets.
The poker room at the Mohegan Sun is state-of-the-art, with over 40 tables featuring games such as Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and Seven Card Stud. The NAPT officially kicked off on March 27th with a No Limit Hold’em Deep Stack multi-day tournament. The Main Event started on Wednesday, April 7th and is a $5,000 buy-in tournament. Players started with 30,000 in chips and playing 60-minute blind levels. The Main Event is scheduled to play through Sunday, April 11th, with the televised final table starting up at Noon.
On Monday, April 12th, a $25,000 No Limit Texas Hold’em Bounty Shootout will begin. Players will start with 25,000 chips and, like the Main Event, will see 60-minute blind levels. ESPN2 will be on-hand filming for both days of the No Limit Bounty Shootout.
Preliminary events at Mohegan Sun have garnered big numbers, with the aforementioned kickoff event attracting 380 players to create a prize pool of $200,000. When the Main Event kicked off, more than 700 players had entered and PokerStars reported that 273 had qualified via online satellites. Daniel Negreanu delivered the ceremonial “Shuffle Up and Deal” command to begin play, with top pros Phil Ivey, James Akenhead, Jeff Madsen, and Shaun Deeb entering as well. Because so many players entered, play spilled into the convention center, which housed 60 poker tables. The staff at the Mohegan Sun announced that the NAPT Main Event broke casino records for attendance and prize pool.
Only 443 players made it to Day 2. Those who made it to Day 2 include Vanessa Rousso, Gavin Griffin, Angel Guillen, and Jason Mercier. Other notable Day 1 survivors included Phil Ivey, Gavin Smith, NAPT Venetian winner Tom Marchese, James Akenhead, David Williams, Vanessa Selbst, and “Miami” John Cernuto.
Bernard Lee was playing in the Main Event and survived Day 1 as well. Unfortunately, the ESPN “Inside Deal” host busted out, posting on his Twitter account that he never got anything going on Day 2 and went all-in with 8-8 and lost a race against A-Q. He mentioned in an interview with PokerNewsDaily.com that the event was highly successful and that PokerStars had its act together when it came to running the event.
Currently, there are no other announced stops on the NAPT, but more are expected to take place this year either in the United States or Canada. Visit PokerStars for more information.
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