2013 WSOP Europe: Charania Discusses Late-Regging Event #3, Poker Scheduling, and More
When Mohsin Charania busted out of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour London High Roller, he hopped on a plane to Newark, New Jersey. Dan Fleyshman tweeted at Charania, asking him if the World Series of Poker Europe had suddenly been moved to the Garden State.
“I’ll be back Tuesday,” Charania responded. “Got a wedding to attend this weekend.”
Faraz Jaka and Hiren “Sunny” Patel also attended the wedding, and thankfully Charania and Patel were present to help Jaka tie his bowtie.
On Tuesday morning, Charania and Jaka landed at Charles de Gaulle, intending to hop in a cab to their hotel in Enghien-les-Bains and take a nap. When they arrived at their hotel, however, they bumped into a fellow professional poker player who told them that registration in Event #3 was open until the start of Day 2.
With a prize pool over €650,000 and first place worth nearly €200,000 plus the gold bracelet, Jaka and Mohsin wanted to take advantage of every opportunity they could get.
“We got to the hotel around 12:15,” said Charania. “Then we bumped into David "Bakes" Baker, who said you could register until 1 p.m. We went to our room, got ready, ran over to the casino, registered, and jumped in.”
Charania says that he tends to set a schedule, and that he always planned to attend the WSOP Europe, he just didn’t know you could register on Day 2. Unfortunately for both Charania and Jaka, they were eliminated before the money bubble burst on Day 2. Jaka lost a flip, and Charania got his stack in the middle with QxQx against an opponent’s KxJx. The flop and turn were clean, but the river produced a king.
Jaka went back to the hotel to grab a nap, while Charania hopped right into Event #4.
The Chicago-based professional is impressed with what he’s seen on property thus far, and is very happy with the timing of the event.
“I like this a little better than Cannes. It’s very wide open and close to Paris,” said Charania. “The schedule is so convenient, too. I know people who don’t even travel to Europe, but with EPT London, WSOP Europe, and WPT Paris it’s great. When the three big companies, maybe not working together, but it some how works out that way — which they should be doing more often — it really helps make your life a lot easier.”
As a follow up, we asked Charania what he thought about the WPT moving their championship event and possibly clashing with the EPT Grand Final.
“I think it’s a disaster,” said Charania. “I don’t understand why. Maybe they have venue issues or something, but PokerStars issues their schedules so far in advance that it makes no sense to run a tournament against it.”
Charania, winner of the Season 8 EPT Grand Final Main Event, admits to showing a bit of favoritism towards the festival.
“I’m biased towards the Grand Final,” he said, grinning. “But I was excited to play at Borgata. The $15,000 buy-in will probably get a lot more players. I think it could get a great turnout and they could even run a high roller if they ran it a few days after the Grand Final.”
Charania has only played at the Borgata once, but believes that it is a solid venue that is capable of hosting such a marquee event. He also says that, if online poker returns to New Jersey in late November and a certain site is operating, he would consider making the move.
“If online poker re-opened, and I could play on PokerStars, I would be very happy to move to New Jersey,” said Charania. “The other sites would have to get bigger for it to be worth it.”
While playing on PokerStars could be some time away for Charania and others, playing on Borgata's online poker site could come much sooner. On Wednesday, Oct. 9, Borgata received the state's first Internet gambling permit. This could come as soon, as the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement notified casinos of a Nov. 26 start date.
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