With the second Main Event of the Epic Poker League (EPL) set to get underway on Tuesday, there was the still some unfinished business left over the weekend, as nine free seats were to be handed out at the Pro/Am lead-up tournament. Greg “FBT” Mueller emerged as the eventual winner of the event, though because of the nature of the event, he didn’t take home any cash.
Of course, that deserves an explanation. The Pro/Am event is held prior to each Main Event of the Epic Poker League with the primary purpose of awarding a $20,000 Main Event seat to each of the top nine finishers. Any prize money left is distributed based on the tournament’s payout schedule. For the first EPL Pro/Am, held about a month ago, everything went to form. The Main Event seats were awarded and with 190 players registered for the Pro/Am, there was plenty of prize money left over for the top finishers to share. This go-round, however, only 97 players opted to participate, which meant that there wasn’t enough of a prize pool to cover the $180,000 worth of Main Events seats that were guaranteed. So, while the EPL still awarded the nine Main Event seats, there was no extra prize money to distribute.
That situation made for an interesting end to the tournament. Tournament organizers had originally planned to have the 20 players who were still alive at the beginning of play Sunday to battle it out until there were nine remaining. At that point, since everyone would win the same prize, the $20,000 Main Event seat, the tournament would be stopped. There was still, however, the opportunity to earn points for the EPL’s Global Poker Index ranking system. Thus, the players decided that they wanted to finish it up for the points. They weren’t all that concerned about the results, though, so they opted to turn the rest of the proceedings into a super turbo tourney with five minute blinds. When all was said and done, Mueller defeated Nam Le heads-up to claim victory.
Both Mueller and Le, along with 11-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, hold EPL membership cards, so they had already qualified for the Main Event. Their finishes, though, will save them the $20,000 buy-in to tomorrow’s tournament. The rest of the top nine – Andreas Hoivold, Sean Getzwiller, Brandon Meyers, Russell Rosenbum, Jeremy Ausmus and Michael DiVita – are not EPL members, so this was their only opportunity to get into the Main Event, paid or otherwise. Getzwiller and Meyers both won seats via the Pro/Am for the first Main Event, as well. Getzwiller went on to finish 9th in said Main Event, winning $70,960.
As already mentioned, the second Epic Poker League Main Event will kick off tomorrow at noon Pacific time at the Palms Resort Casino. The $20,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament is open only to those who have met the membership requirements of the EPL, along with the aforementioned qualifiers from the Pro/Am.
