There are just two online qualifiers remaining in the $600 Kickoff Event in the fight for a Gold Pass package to NAPT Las Vegas that will be the last qualifier standing.
With just three tables remaining, Daniel Bellis sits with a healthy stack of 37 big blinds as he looks to outlast Michael Lavin, who is down to 16 big blinds. The two battled at the same table for several hours before Lavin was eventually moved to another table.
The suspense is on and you can follow the action through the PokerNewslive updates.
No "PokerNews curse" confirmed? Bracelet winner and radiologist Lara Eisenberg, who PokerNewstalked to earlier in the series, is currently chip leading the $600 Kickoff Event with 2.3 million in chips.
Eisenberg built up a thick wall of purple chips before rearranging her stack into a pointy tower.
Lara Eisenberg
Read more about Eisenberg as she makes a deep run here in Maryland.
In the 1970s, long before the Poker Boom, online qualifier Trevor Tracy was introduced to poker in the same sort of dingy backroom games that iconic players like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim were becoming legends in.
While these games were in Arizona and not Texas, and Tracy was a chip-runner, not a player, they instilled in Tracy a deep passion for the game that's stayed with him for nearly half a century.
“My neighbor used to run all the illegal poker rooms in Phoenix back in the ‘70s," Tracy told PokerNews. "So I was chipboy when I was like 10 years old. So I’ve been around poker for 45 years. The neighbor was a gangster who owned like ten poker houses in Phoenix."
"It was cool. My allowance was like $2 a week and I’d make $100 a night there. It was great.”
These days, Tracy, now based in Pittsburgh, travels the live circuit and plays everywhere from his home state of Arizona to up north in Ontario. He started playing online a year ago and "play(s) a lot of satellites," which is how he won his seat into the $600 Kickoff Event at the PokerStars 2024 Maryland State Poker Championship.
He's only played at Live! Casino & Hotel Maryland once before but it proved to be a fruitful trip.
“It was like the first tournament on the East Coast — this and the Borgata. I ended up chopping it, so I’ve had good luck here so far.”
Tracy built up a stack of Day 1f before losing a big pot as the night wound down — “I just took a big hit for 100k" — and eventually falling before bag time.
The fight is on for five online qualifiers who advanced to Day 2 of the $600 Kickoff Event as they look to be the last qualifier standing to win a Gold Pass package to NAPT Las Vegas in November.
New Jersey's Michael Lavin leads the way among the returning qualifiers as he looks to add to his $505,922 in live earnings. Behind him are Greg Jackson (254,000), Daniel Bellis (70,000) Rahul Agarwal (62,000) and Joseph Weaver (59.000).
Follow the PokerNewslive updates of the Kickoff Event to sweat with the qualifiers.
Don't forget that there will be two more Gold Passes awarded in Maryland, including later today in the $400 6-Max Championship.
The sixth and final starting flight of the $600 Kickoff Event of the PokerStars 2024 Maryland State Poker Championship has wrapped up and saw John Wilson bagging the chip lead with a stack of 557,000.
Day 1f was the biggest flight of all with 289 entries, and among the 37 players who bagged are Matthew Sabia, Lee Childs, Eric Liebeler, Matthew Riebel and James Kennedy. PokerNews' Tyler Boyer recapped the flight, which can be read here.
Here's a look at some of the biggest hands from the final flight:
Another winner has been crowned at the PokerStars 2024 Maryland State Poker Championship and it is Virginia's Donovan Bates, who took down the $400 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha 8 event for $7,400.
The $20,000 guaranteed event drew 55 players, and those who made the money included David Greene (7th - $900), Stuart Rotter (4th - $1,900) Gilles Raynaud (3rd - $2,700) and runner-up Christopher Pham Le (2nd - $4,400).
2024 Maryland State Poker Championship PLO 8 Results
With the $600 Kickoff Event well underway, the fight is on among the online qualifiers to win a Gold Pass package to NAPT Las Vegas in November.
The last online qualifier standing will receive a Gold Pass package that offers:
$5,300 Buy-In: Entry to the Main Event of the NAPT.
$2,900 Hotel Accommodation: Ensuring a luxurious stay during the tournament.
$1,800 Expenses: Additional funds to cover travel and other costs.
Only three online qualifiers survived the first five starting flights, and they are Michael Lavin (302,000), Rahul Agarwal (62,000), and Joseph Weaver (59,000). But there are a handful of online qualifiers in contention in Day 1f, identified by the NAPT patches slapped on their shirts and jackets.
There will also be a Gold Pass up for grabs in Sunday's $400 6-Max Championship as a mystery bounty prize, as well as for the winner of the $500,000 guaranteed $2,200 Main Event.
As a radiologist, Dr. Lara Eisenberg is used to examining patients and reading medical reports. But Eisenberg is doing a different kind of reading this weekend as she picks up tells on opponents and accumulates chips in the $600 Kickoff Event at the PokerStars 2024 Maryland State Poker Championship.
Eisenberg, who in her spare time is a serious poker enthusiast nearly seven figures in Hendon Mob earnings, bagged third in chips in yesterday's starting flight and will likely enter Day 2 of the $300,000 guaranteed event with a top-ten stack.
“It’s been a great event," she told PokerNews after bagging on Friday night. "They always run amazing tournaments here. The table’s been fun. I was at the same table all day and we’ve had a great time.”
When she isn't in the lab at Maryland's Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Eisenberg is likely grinding a tournament at Live! Casino & Hotel Maryland or in an online MTT.
“I play as often as I can," Eisenberg said. "I have a full-time job, but the tournaments that they run here are great, and so I’d say I probably play every couple of months. I’d play more if I was retired. Maybe soon.”
“I play quite a bit, so I play online and study a lot. So I’m probably still putting in a few days a month of playing, it’s just not always live.”
Lara Eisenberg
Eisenberg's hours in the poker lab paid off exponentially in 2021 when she took down the WSOP Ladies NLHE Championship for $115,694 and her first bracelet, defeating a final table that included Women in Poker Hall of Famer JJ Liu, PokerStars content creator Marle Spragg and 2023 GPI Female Player of the Year Cherish Andrews.
A little over a year later, she finished runner-up to Stephen Song in the WPT Prime Championship at Wynn Las Vegas for $481,500. Notably, that victory propelled Song to win GPI Player of the Year at the eleventh hour.
"(Those two runs) felt really great," said Eisenberg. "It felt really validating to have a second big win after the first, that was in an open event. So that felt really great.”
While she can clearly compete against the Vegas pros, Eisenberg is most comfortable playing here in her home state.
"Around here it’s all friends and people that you know and see here all the time, which is really cool."
Want to hear more from the accomplished poker player and medical professional?
PokerNews had a chance to pick Eisenberg's brain in 2022, discussing everything from how poker can combat dementia to whether women are wired or socialized to play poker in the same way as men.
“Poker didn’t come up in my world, poker comes up in guy’s world," she told PokerNews in 2022. "A small number of women grow up in households where poker is a regular past time. And, in general, young women don't tend to play poker when they get together as often as young men do. So, the exposure element is a factor."
PokerNews' live reporters Nick Becker and Tyler Boyer have been hard at work covering the $600 Kickoff Event, including today's Day 1d. Becker recapped the fourth starting flight, which can be read here.
As Day 1e plays out inside Live! Casino & Hotel Maryland and the live reporters rest up before covering tomorrow's final flight, take a look at some of the biggest hands from the tournament so far.
A second winner has emerged in the PokerStars 2024 Maryland State Poker Championship in the $400 Limit Omaha 8 event, which had a $20,000 guarantee and drew 40 players.
Coming out on top was Odenton's William Fidel, who defeated Baltimore's Aaron Pinson during heads-up play to take home $7,800. Others at the final table included Joshua Barr (3rd - $2,800), Ralph Grafton (4th - $2,000), Shane Kelly (5th - $1,600) and John Parker (6th - $1,200).
2024 Maryland State Poker Championship Limit O8 Results
