2024 Maryland State Poker Championship
Maryland LIVE! Highlights
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The first winner at the PokerStars 2024 Maryland State Poker Championship is Maryland's Eric Lucas, who took down the $400 buy-in HORSE event for $8,972.
The tournament had a $20,000 guarantee and smashed that with a $26,386 prize pool. Lucas earned the lion's share as he defeated Virginia's Paul Adams ($5,145), while others at the final table included fellow Virginian Michael Heffner (4th - $2,177) and Maryland's Stuar Rotter (3rd - $3,219) and Anthony Collurafici (7th - $1,161).
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2024 Maryland State Poker Championship HORSE Results
| PLACE | PLAYER | HOMETOWN | PRIZE (IN USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eric Lucas | Havre De Grace, MD | $8,972 |
| 2 | Paul Adams | Grace Allen, VA | $5,145 |
| 3 | Stuart Rotter | Parksville, MD | $3,219 |
| 4 | Michael Heffner | Reston, VA | $2,177 |
| 5 | Brian Zekus | Minneapolis, MS | $1,649 |
| 6 | Robert Brylinski | Buffalo, NY | $1,319 |
| 7 | Anthony Collurafici | Sparrows Point, MD | $1,161 |
| 8 | Dale Harrison | Middle River, MD | $1,055 |
| 9 | Aaron Pinson | Baltimore, MD | $897 |
| 10 | Hossein Ghodosi Fard | Bethesda, MD | $792 |
During yesterday's Day 1c flight of the $600 Kickoff Event, PokerNews happened to be walking by a table when Riva Arthur got all in with pocket kings against another player with kings. A chop seemed imminent, but that is not how it went down.
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Arthur held the K♦ and a two-diamond flop of 8♦Q♥Q♦ left her freerolling. The 3♦ turn upped the suspense factor, and the dramatic 6♦ river gave her the flush to put a tough beat on the now-eliminated opponent.
Arthur, who is from Massachusetts, has already amassed $91,207 in Hendon Mob earnings despite her first cash being a little over a year ago.
She's had success at Live! before, taking down a $200k guaranteed Multi-Flight event in March for $29,300.
Arthur also made a deep run in last year's NAPT Las Vegas $5,300 NAPT High Roller with a tenth-place finish worth $16,295.
The third starting day of the $600 Kickoff Event at the Maryland State Poker Championship at Live! Casino and Hotel Maryland continues today with another two flights, first with Day 1d that started at 11:15 a.m. local time and then with Day 1e.
Day 1d is well underway and already has around 150 players toward the end of registration. The event only needs the double that number to surpass the $300,000 guarantee with two more flights to come.
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"We're going to have a monster-sized field tomorrow," the floor told players about Day 1f as they went to break.
Those in the Day 1d field this afternoon include Steve Doyon, Paul Kiem, Jeremy Rodriguez, Katelyn Miller and Donald Price.
PokerNews is live reporting the Day 1d action, which you can read about here.
Don't forget that there is a Gold Pass to the NAPT Las Vegas Main Event in November up for grabs. PokerStars will be awarding the last online qualifier standing the Gold Pass package, which includes travel, accommodation, and the $5,300 tournament buy-in.
As Virginia's Dennis Backhaus grinded away in the $600 Kickoff Event of the Maryland State Poker Championship at Live! Casino and Hotel Maryland, attentive players at the table may have noticed the bright graphic of a shield-wielding Viking warrior on his black t-shirt.
The shirt was of the Swedish band Amon Amarth, whose music has been categorized as melodic death metal and Viking metal, two subgenres of heavy metal characterized by fast tempos, growled vocals and lyrics of Norse mythology.
As a music fan, band shirts tend to stand out to me in crowded poker tournament fields. Spotting one on Erik Seidel inspired me to write this piece on the Poker Hall of Famer's similar love for music. I also happen to be a fan of Amon Amarth and even saw them in concert a decade ago.
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Just as Sweden has produced some of the greatest poker players of all time — think Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and Niklas Astedt — the Scandinavian country has also birthed many of the biggest death metal bands in the world and is known for its prominent metal scenes in Stockholm and Gothenburg.
Backhaus has $66,943 in Hendon Mob earnings, two first-place finishes at Maryland Live! and excellent taste in music.
While the final five tables of Day 1c of the $600 Kickoff Event were on a 15-minute break, PokerNews chatted with Scott Stephens, a Virginian who frequently grinds the tournaments at Maryland Live! and other casinos in the region.
Stephens hopes to make Day 2 and has already done so in an event at another casino, meaning it is shaping up to be a busy few days of poker for the Virginian.
Day 1c had been rocky for Stephens, who said he "had three bad beats" including flopping a king-high flush and losing to an ace-high flush and flopping a boat and losing to a bigger boat.
His luck turned around later in the evening when he four-bet jammed with pocket kings and doubled up through an opponent with pocket nines.
Though his Hendon Mob shows only $10,410 in live earnings, that number is deceiving.
"I have a few firsts that aren't on there," he told PokerNews, adding that he has no plans of getting it updated. "I like flying under the radar."
We'll keep his secret safe if you do.
The second starting flight of the $600 Kickoff Event at the 2024 Maryland State Poker Championship sponsored by PokerStars has wrapped up with 16 players remaining, just a fraction of the 125 who entered Day 1b. PokerNews' Tyler Boyer recapped the flight, which you can read about here.
Despite the large field, a notable player ended up bagging the chip lead with a stack of 503,000 as the only player with more than half a million chips. That player is Virginia's Yaser Al-Keliddar, a longtime mid-stakes grinder who has amassed more than $1.1 million in Hendon Mob earnings.
Al-Keliddar's first tournament cash dates back 20 years when he finished 126th in the 2004 WSOP Main Event for $15,000. A quick glance at his Hendon shows that this isn't his first time grinding at Maryland Live!, and in 2017, he took down a $330 Black Chip Bounty event for $8,022.
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The next year, Al-Keliddar won a maiden bracelet in the 2019 $3,000 Limit Hold'em 6-Handed for $154,338. He picked up a Circuit ring in 2022 at WSOPC Cherokee in a $400 No-Limit Hold'em Event that grossed him $25,013.
When he returns in the money on Day 2, Al-Keliddar will need to fend off fellow bigs stacks Sean Gomez, Gregory Chill and Derek Scott, as well as any big stacks that bag the other five starting flights.