MSPT Champ Abdul Amer Leads HPT Hollywood Casino Columbus Final Table
Day 2 of the Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) Hollywood Casino Columbus saw the final 93 players from a 588-entry field return to action. By the end of the night, the field was whittled down to the final table of nine. They will return on Monday to battle it out for the $191,723 first-place prize on the live-streamed final table.
Leading the pack is Abdul Amer, who is no stranger to poker in Ohio. Last year he topped a 581-entry field to win the $1,100 MSPT Cleveland Poker Open at JACK Cleveland Casino for $118,350.
Others returning to action are World Series of Poker bracelet winners Adam Friedman and Joey Couden and World Poker Tour champ Kevin “1$sickDisea$E” Eyster. Interestingly, Amer is friends with Friedman, who finished third in the aforementioned MSPT Cleveland.
Final Table Lineup
| Seat | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mandeep Sah | 2,985,000 |
| 2 | Spenser Cramer | 1,265,000 |
| 3 | Thila Narayanan | 1,180,000 |
| 4 | Kevin Eyster | 1,205,000 |
| 5 | Joey Couden | 2,075,000 |
| 6 | Abdul Amer | 4,295,000 |
| 7 | Jeff Hart | 1,485,000 |
| 8 | Ryan Wince | 1,480,000 |
| 9 | Adam Friedman | 1,66o,000 |
More than two dozen players busted short of the money on Sunday including Chris Moon, Stephen Song, and bubble boy Andrew Jeffrey, who ran pocket eights smack dab into aces to burst the bubble.
From there the in-the-money finishes began to mount and included Frank Lagodich (58th - $3,067), Andy Spears (39th - $3,919), HPT’s all-time money leader Craig Casino (35th - $4,686), Shawn “Reginald” Roberts (26th - $5,623), Day 1c chip leader Mike Comisso (22nd - $5,623), HPT The Meadows champ Dan Wagner (20th - $5,623), Day 1a chip leader Brian Frye (16th - $7,498), Nick Guagenti (14th - $9,798), and Mike Sabbia (11th - $13,121), who moved into fourth place on the HPT Season XV Player of the Year leaderboard.
It was actually the elimination of Sabbia that helped propel Amer to the top of the counts. Sabbia fired all three streets on a Big Slick bluff and Sabbia picked him off with second pair. As for Friedman, he began the day as a big chip leader and rode it to the final, though not without getting lucky a time or two.
That included putting a bad beat on Guagenti, who got his chips in preflop with ace-ten against Friedman’s ace-eight. Guagenti’s kicker had him out in front through the flop and turn, but then Friedman found an eight on the river to steal the pot.
The final nine players will return at Noon on Monday to play down to a winner with 23:50 remaining in Level 25 (20,000/40,000/40,000). The action will not only be lived reported here on PokerNews but also live streamed worldwide. It’ll also be filmed for television, which marks the first time Ohio will have held a nationally televised poker tournament.