Cory Retzlaff Wins FPN King Slayer "League Champ" Championship
The Free Poker Network (FPN) King Slayer National Championship “League Champ Championship” played out Friday night at the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas. The tournament catered to 234 players who qualified throughout 2019 at approximately 200 bar leagues across the county.
In essence, the tournament served as a satellite of sorts as the top 34 players earned a spot into Sunday’s $50,000 guaranteed Main Event, which is also only open to FPN qualifiers. One player to win a Main Event seat was Fargo, North Dakota’s Cory Retzlaff, who finished as the last player standing to also claim a $10,000 first-place prize.
"$200 is probably my largest buy-in I've ever played and of course a few WSOP events are on my bucket list."
Retzlaff has had a love for poker since around 2005 and has played on and off in different leagues and friendly games over the years. Retzlaff isn't a stranger to Vegas having been to the city at least ten times but he has never taken too many risks in the casino.
"$200 is probably my largest buy-in I've ever played and of course a few WSOP events are on my bucket list,” he said after the win. “This is my best poker experience... so far!" he shouted to his happy friends on the rail.
When asked what words Retzlaff has for his friends back home playing at the Prairie Brothers Bar in Fargo, he said, "I just got hot in a quarterly event and qualified for this weekend. I've played in so many of those and gotten nowhere but let me tell you, keep playing. Keep playing like I did and you can make it here and run deep like I did."
At the end of the winner-take-all tournament, Retzlaff squared off against Doug Lindgren of Mill Banks, South Dakota, who qualified at the Back Door Pub. In the final hand, Lindgren shoved with ace-seven but failed to hold against Retzlaff’s king-queen.
On to the Main Event
On Saturday, there will be some last-chance qualifiers for players to win their way into Sunday’s King Slayer Championship Main Event. That tournament, which will kick off at 1 p.m. PST, will pay out the top 27 spots. There will be $10,000 in mystery bounties awarded with the eventual winner taking home $25,000. The tournament is open to state tournament qualifiers, League Champ Championship qualifiers, satellite qualifiers, and others.
Most players earn their seats in the King Slayer Championship Main Event by first competing in their local state championship. The number of qualifiers is based on total participation. The state with the highest participation in the league is Minnesota, with 30 direct qualifiers to the King Slayer Championship Main Event.
Not only will the Main Event be live reported here on PokerNews, but there will also be a live-streamed feature table on twitch.tv/freepokernetwork. On Sunday at 6 p.m. there will also be a Tag Team Championship event that is open to the public.
