partypoker US Network Series (Jan. 17-24)

Level 13 has begun with blinds of 1,800/3,600 and an ante of 450. Thirty-one players now remain from 80 entries, and "Core4" is still out in front" with Michael "UFOLDIWIN" St. John and Ryan "simlSgg" Hagerty hot on their heels.

Player	Chips	Progress
Core4	279,060 258,188	258,188
Michael "UFOLDIWIN" St. John	252,615 162,290	162,290
Ryan "simlSgg" Hagerty	239,728 86,550	86,550
John "Slapshot1085" Forlenza	177,174 58,398	58,398
Chris "rumpthumper" White	166,950 146,635	146,635
Daniel "leinad" Buzgon	166,864 26,648	26,648
pure_reason	160,094 138,758	138,758
ndirish50	154,840 154,840	154,840
Don "dhimp20" Himpele	146,186 79,076	79,076
Yong "IReadYrSoul" Kwon	145,010 7,792	7,792
Daniel "centrfieldr23" Lupo	145,000 74,445	74,445
Eric "alwaysliquid" Vanauken	143,979 49,863	49,863
James "Bagels" Lillis	139,937 -85,056	-85,056
keefvanh0rn	139,428 13,194	13,194
joey1way	138,592 44,636	44,636
ShoveNpray	136,600 136,600	136,600
Cholie	134,537 134,537	134,537
RiverMan	129,165 41,496	41,496
Dan "mj23style" Sewnig	127,227 127,227	127,227
Angel "chromeking" Lopez	122,625 41,274	41,274
Gohednpopoff	Busted

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In Level 12 with blinds of 1,600/3,200 and an ante of 400, there are now 33 players remaining from a total of 78 entries. BorgataPoker.com Ambassador Katie "KatieStone" Stone is among those to have recently been eliminated.

Registration will remain open through the end of Level 15, closing at 10:43 p.m. ET.

Player	Chips	Progress
Katie "KatieStone" Stone	Busted
Derek "pompii" Sudell	Busted
Cholie	Busted
xxx6395200xxx	Busted
Jaime "mooseman1710" Reyes	Busted
Stanton "Stonniepokes" Tentnowski	Busted
BigBang	Busted
Orson "borgatcha" Young	Busted
kevmo15	Busted
King_Icon	Busted
redraider	Busted
Ted "roystalin" Ely	Busted

In Level 11 with blinds of 1,400/2,800 and an ante of 350, Stanton "Stonniepokes" Tentnowski open-jammed for 17,000 and Chris "rumpthumper" White re-jammed in the small blind for 37,000, receiving a fold behind to bring about hands being shown for the pending runout.

Stanton "Stonniepokes" Tentnowski:
Chris "rumpthumper" White:

Tentnowski had the best hand and remained out in front all the way through the runout , earning the double with kings and queens and taking White down to 20,000 in the process.

Player	Chips	Progress
Stanton "Stonniepokes" Tentnowski	38,830 -1,495	-1,495
Chris "rumpthumper" White	20,315 20,315	20,315

BorgataPoker.com has a trio of Sponsored Pros, and one of them is Katie Stone.

Stone has more than $176K in lifetime live tournament earnings including a career-bet $33,305 for finishing 378th in the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event. In addition, Stone has three Borgata Open titles including the 2018 Borgata Fall Poker Open $300 Deepest Stack for $19,337, 2017 Borgata Summer Poker Open $300 Ladies Event for $2,867, and 2017 Borgata Fall Poker Open $300 Deepstack for $9,484. She also recently won the CSOP Borgata Winter Poker Open Event back in January.

However, where Stone has really thrived is online where she’s amassed more than $900K in lifetime earnings. Of that, $146,954 has come on BorgataPoker.com where she plays under the screen name “KatieStone.”

According to a Q&A she did with the Borgata Blog, Stone was born and raised in New Jersey, but after Black Friday in 2011, she relocated to Rosarito, Mexico in order to continue playing online. When New Jersey authorized Atlantic City casinos to offer online gaming within state borders, Stone moved back north to New Jersey and picked up where she left off — winning!

Recently, Stone took the initiative to create the Discord channel “Poker Peeps Affected By COVID19” and invited those in casino industry affected by recent shutdowns to join.

“I realized how tough it was going to be for everyone to keep up with everything and everyone, with so much changing so fast,” Stone recently told PokerNews. “So, I messaged my friend Cy Watson, who has been very active on social media as well regarding Coronavirus, asking him if he thought it would be a good idea to start a chat for people in the industry to be able to connect with each other for help.”

She continued: “I think the main thing poker players and everyone can do is to keep an open mind. Understanding that this is unlike any situation any of us have encountered before, and so thinking outside the box can go a long way. Taking the time to improve a skill, or learn a new skill whether it's a game or something else could be really beneficial not just financially, but mentally.”

Click here to learn more about Stone’s initiative.

In Level 9 with blinds of 1,000/2,000 and an ante of 250, "Core4" is the new chip leader as 67 entries have now been logged and 42 players currently remain. Here's a look at the front page of the leader board.

Player	Chips	Progress
Core4	235,837 194,787	194,787
James "Bagels" Lillis	224,993 102,737	102,737
Daniel "leinad" Buzgon	140,216 100,764	100,764
Yong "IReadYrSoul" Kwon	137,218 54,598	54,598
upayformypennys	132,275 132,275	132,275
keefvanh0rn	126,234 -4,100	-4,100
Ryan "simlSgg" Hagerty	119,278 62,820	62,820
John "Slapshot1085" Forlenza	118,776 -15,250	-15,250
Jon "Jetsfan411" Borenstein	111,815 47,893	47,893
King_Icon	95,175 32,900	32,900
joey1way	93,956 93,956	93,956
Michael "UFOLDIWIN" St. John	90,325 90,325	90,325
odo23	89,467 34,867	34,867
RiverMan	87,669 57,246	57,246
neat1995	82,647 82,647	82,647
Gohednpopoff	81,442 57,128	57,128
Angel "chromeking" Lopez	81,351 81,351	81,351
Daniel "centrfieldr23" Lupo	70,555 20,555	20,555
Ted "roystalin" Ely	69,359 -23,041	-23,041
SaltSea	64,466 24,282	24,282

In Level 8 with blinds of 800/1,600 and an ante of 200, action folded to "pure_reason" on the button, who opened to 4,800. "BlckJck" three-bet jammed for 31,700 in the small blind and "keefvanh0rn" could four-bet shoved over the top in the big blind to fold "pure_reason" out of the hand and have a clear shot at a bounty.

"BlckJck":
"keefvanh0rn":

"BlckJck" found their threes in a coin flip and pulled decently ahead on the flop . However, the turn changed things completely as "keefvanh0rn" picked up a pair of ladies, which remained best as the river completed the runout to earn them the pot and the knockout.

Player	Chips	Progress
keefvanh0rn	130,334 130,334	130,334
Eric "alwaysliquid" Vanauken	59,297 809	809
Katie "KatieStone" Stone	43,152 -11,930	-11,930
pure_reason	21,336 21,336	21,336
BlckJck	Busted

In Level 7 with blinds of 600/1,200 and an ante of 150, Yong "IReadYrSoul" Kwon opened the action with a raise to 2,400 on the button and received a call from "Gohednpopoff" in the big blind. "Gohednpopoff" check-called 2,100 on the flop and another 6,200 on the turn , bringing the river where action checked through to showdown.

"Gohednpopoff" showed for a flopped pair of queens, but Kwon's topped it with his turned top pair of aces to earn him the pot at showdown.

Player	Chips	Progress
John "Slapshot1085" Forlenza	134,026
Ted "roystalin" Ely	92,400
Yong "IReadYrSoul" Kwon	82,620
Gohednpopoff	24,314
redraider	21,160

The partypoker US Online Network – which is comprised of partypoker US, Borgata Poker and BetMGM Poker – has been gaining momentum in New Jersey.

One player who has been doing quite well on the network is bracelet winner Daniel “centrfieldr23” Lupo, 37, of West Milford, New Jersey. You might recall that last summer, Lupo topped a 1,767-entry field to win the WSOP.com Online $500 NLH Turbo Deepstack for $145,274 and a gold bracelet. Earlier in the year, he added a ring to his résumé by taking down the WSOP.com Online Circuit Event #3: $320 NLH 6-Max for $32,595 and a month later won the WSOP.com $100,000 GTD Sunday for $50,715.

Lupo’s success continued from there when he bested a 305-entry field to win the partypoker US Network Online Series $50K GTD NLH 6-Max Main Event for $14,792 in August, 2020.

PokerNews caught up with Lupo, who went to NJIT for Architecture and baseball, to ask him about poker, which he squeezes in between working for an Architecture firm in Bridgewater specializing in single-family residential and smaller commercial projects and his family, which includes three kids ages 2-5 and his supportive wife Laura.

Q&A with Daniel “centrfieldr23” Lupo

PokerNews: When and how did you learn to play poker?

Lupo: I started playing/learning in college during the Rounders and Moneymaker boom with a bunch of the baseball guys. Within a year I found myself hosting games at college, at home on breaks and basically anywhere I could find or make a game. I didn’t play much online early on, regrettably.

What sort of poker do you play these days?

Mostly online MTTs playing like three sessions per week on average with buy-ins typically from $50 to $1k with the occasional $2-$3k buy in for a big event. I average around 500-600 MTTs a month despite not playing full time, I tend to put in a lot of volume when I’m on. The games are mostly NLH and some PLO MTTs, but love when StarsNJ runs a series as they run a fun 8-Game MTT with a bunch of other mixed variants.

What’s it like to play poker while raising young children?

It’s been a constant evolution. I could probably write a book about all the highs and lows and life adjustments I’ve had or chose to make. It gives me a lot of inspiration to succeed while also adding some weight to my losses as it's like 'not only was I way from my kids for all of Sunday afternoon but I lost (insert obnoxious Sunday schedule cost here)'.

What are some of your poker goals?

Try and win everything I play. Actually, my biggest current goal is trying to optimize my MTT game selection. Since quarantine began the schedules have been exploding site to site and while it's been great, with lots of new players and lots of live players playing online it has also drastically increased my average buy-ins and session costs as well as the field size which further increases variance.

I'm trying to optimize the balance of table quantity and expected value vs individual session costs and the variance that comes with it. Having an average buy-in of $250 adds up pretty quickly when it's spread across 60+ entries on a Sunday. My biggest ongoing and long-term goal is to win enough to help my family live comfortably.

How did it feel to take down the partypoker US Network Phased Main Event?

I was pretty stoked about the partypoker US win. I love their structure and it was a very tough field when we were deep; I was fortunate to run pretty well and be able to leverage my chip stack at the final table. I had made a bunch of top 18 runs in their series Main Events but couldn't crack a solid finish lately so this felt a little extra special.

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