Poker News Daily guest columnist and Foxwoods Casino Resort spokesperson Bernard Lee announced recently that two special guests will host the Foxwoods Mega Stack Challenge from May 11th to 17th. Former World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event November Nine members Dennis Phillips and Kevin Schaffel will take part in the daily events and sign autographs during the three-tournament series, which has been a staple of the Foxwoods tournament scene since 2008.
The always friendly Phillips will offer a welcoming presence when the Mega Stack Challenge kicks off next week. Phillips went from being an amateur poker player to one of the game’s most familiar faces after finishing third place in the 2008 WSOP Main Event for $4,517,773. The St. Louis native entered the final table with the chip lead, but ran an untimely bluff against eventual champion and fellow Team PokerStars Pro member Peter Eastgate, whose set of threes sent Phillips to the rail. Phillips followed up his third place finish with a 45th place result in the in 2009 Main Event, collecting $178,857. Earlier this year, Phillips took third place in the NBC National Heads-Up Championship in Las Vegas for $125,000. That tournament was won by UB.com’s Annie Duke.
Schaffel is an accomplished pro who took eighth place in the 2009 WSOP Main Event for $1.3 million. He lost a 24 million chip pot at the final table when his pocket aces were cracked by Eric Buchman’s pocket kings, painfully ending the run of a lifetime for the 51 year old. In 2008, Schaffel was the runner-up in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Legends of Poker to Prahlad Friedman. Schaffel picked up $471,000 for the second-place finish, which was his biggest cash at the time.
The Foxwoods Mega Stack Challenge will open with a two-day $340 No Limit Hold’em event at 11:00am on Tuesday, May 11th. Players will start the tournament with 15,000 in chips, with the blinds starting at 25-50 and increasing every 40 minutes. A guaranteed prize pool of $125,000 has been applied to the tournament. Event #2 during the series also has a guaranteed prize pool of $125,000 and will get underway on Thursday, May 13th. Players will start the $560 two-day event with 20,000 in chips and the blinds will increase every 50 minutes.
The featured tournament of the Mega Stack Challenge, a three-day $1,650 No Limit Hold’em event, will begin at 11:00am on Saturday, May 15th. Players will begin the tournament with 40,000 in chips and blinds will increase every 50 minutes on Day 1 and every hour on Days 2 and 3. Foxwoods has tagged a $250,000 guaranteed prize pool to the event.
Rising superstar Dwyte Pilgrim won the $1,650 buy-in event during February’s Mega Stack Challenge at Foxwoods. After a three-way chop at the final table, Pilgrim bested Micah Raskin heads-up to claim the title and $50,145. Tou Kue won the $560 event for $26,908, and the $340 buy-in title went to circuit regular Maurice Hawkins, who earned $37,586.
News, tournament results, and updates for the Foxwoods Mega Stack challenge can be found at FoxwoodsLive.com.
