With nearly $5 million in online poker tournaments and accomplishments ranging from two FTOPS title to wins in the Sunday Brawl and Sunday Mulligan events to victories in the Sunday Second Chance and a WCOOP Second Chance event.

“Casey is yet another brilliant mind to join the LockPRO Team. We are all very excited to welcome him to the Lock Family,” says Jennifer Larson, CEO/Owner of Lock Poker. “He will be working very closely with our product and marketing teams to really take Lock to the next level. As we grow our LockPRO team we get closer to really becoming the best online poker room in the world.”

Jarzabek joins the team that already includes players like Eric Lynch Matt Stout, Jason Young, Jose Macedo, and Bryan Pellegrino.

“I can’t quite tell you just how thrilled I am to be joining the Lock team. I am truly pumped to be working with such dedicated and motivated people” says Casey “Bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek. “It is an exciting time for Lock Poker right now,as its exploding on the poker scene. And I get a front row seat. I couldn’t have asked for or been given a better opportunity.”

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier won the €25.000 High Roller event last time as part of the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Madrid, Spain. He also won the €10.000 High Roller Turbo event to earn €153.000.

The Bellagio hosted the Five Star World Poker Classic series and was the end of Season IX World Poker Tour. Scotty Nguyen was the man as he went home with $40.000+ and Samuel Stein is the man after him in a $1.000 No Limit Hold ‘Em Event.

90 players found their way over to the $5.000 No Limit Hold ’Em preliminary event with several big names. Hafiz Khan, Stephen O’Dwyer and Eric Froehlich made the final table, but it was WPT World Championship second-place finisher Farzad Bonyadi who finished second. Jim Carroll picked up the win for over $120.000.

The Soaring Eagle Resort in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan hosted the Heartland Poker Tour. It featured some former online players like 20-year old Jordan Jayne who earned over $156.000 in his first live tournament. 2011 PCA seventh place finisher Max Weinberg finished second as James Casement also appeared at the TV final table.

Atlantic City was home to a $1.100 Double Play Deep Stack event at the Borgota last week getting nearly over 450 players. Alexander Queen picked up another six-figure victory after his triumph last year in the Borgata Spring Poker Open Main Event, this time collecting over $110,000.

Final table results from a variety of worldwide tournaments:

EPT Madrid €10,000 High Roller Turbo
Prize Pool: €431.200
Entrants: 44

1st: Bertrand Grospellier – €153.000
2nd: Igor Kurganov – €120.000
3rd: Lucien Cohen – €60.000
4th: Nicholas Chouity – €43.000
5th: Mike McDonald – €30.000
6th: David Peters – €23.000

$1,000 Bellagio Five Star World Poker Classic
Prize Pool: $132.890
Entrants: 137

1st: Scotty Nguyen – $42.522
2nd: Samuel Stein – $29.236
3rd: Fred Berger – $15.415
4th: Eric Blair – $9.302
5th: Myro Garcia – $6.977
6th: Daniel Makowsky – $5.648
7th: Gary Dale Haglund – $4.319
8th: Chris Thorp – $2.990
9th: Bryce Daifuku – $2.126

$5,000 Bellagio Five Star World Poker Classic
Prize Pool: $436.500
Entrants: 90

1st: Jim Carroll – $139.740
2nd: Farzad Bonyadi – $120.030
3rd: Hafiz Khan – $59.595
4th: Eric Froehlich – $32.880
5th: Steve O’Dwyer – $26.715
6th: Jess Yawitz – $20.550
7th: James Mackey – $14.385
8th: Stan Jablonski – $12.330
9th: Anthony Grappo – $10.275

$1,600 Heartland Poker Tour Main Event, Mt. Pleasant Michigan
Prize Pool: $554.554
Entrants: 386

1st: Jordan Jayne – $145.462
2nd: Max Weinberg – $82.732
3rd: Stan Miller – $49.639
4th: Brad Albrinck – $38.608
5th: Doung Nguyen – $33.093
6th: James Casement $27.577

$1,100 Borgata Double Play Deep Stack
Prize Pool: $451.000
Entrants: 451

1st: Alexander Queen – $111.774
2nd: Alek Givotovsky – $64.527
3rd: Robert Fetzko – $39.372
4th: John Whitworth – $31.717
5th: Eugene Todd – $24.937
6th: Andrew Hippler – $20.781
7th: Justin Nasatir – $16.625
8th: Maxwell Mccurdy – $12.688
9th: Jason Filopei – $8.750

A good number of top professionals were there for the WSOP-C $10.000 Southern Regional Championship that began today. Few cashed in the Main Event including Mike Beasley (28th place), Dwyte Pilgrim (24th place) and Allie Prescott (18th place). Professional Matthew Waxman advanced to the final table, but it was Poche who held the title when the dust settled. Read on below to see how he claimed the title.

Here is a look at the chip counts when cards got into the air earlier today:

Seat 1: Lance Craig — 694.000
Seat 2: Josh Evans — 1.159.000
Seat 3: Matt Waxman — 460.000
Seat 4: Bobby Toye — 882.000
Seat 5: Jonathan Poche — 656.000
Seat 6: Jake Bazeley — 983.000
Seat 7: Todd Wood — 1.619.000
Seat 8: Billie Payne — 307.000
Seat 9: Scott Zakheim — 491.000
Seat 10: James McBride — 395.000

A classic titanic clash of pocket Kings vs pocket Aces for Lance Craig and Todd Wood. Craig lost the battle. Jim McBride did not make it when his pocket Eights lost to Ace and Queen of Todd. Matt Waxman was all in preflop with King and Queen and he was dominated by the pocket Kings of Bobby Toye, which held to win the pot.

Billie Payne (seventh place), Jake Bazeley (sixth place), and Scott Zakheim (fifth place) fell in the course of 20 minutes after a long pause. Then nothing happened anymore again.

The spell was borken with Wood busting out with King and Seven against King and Queen of Josh Evans. Evans went after that and lost a coin flip with pocket Jacks followed with Nine and Eight on a cripled shove. The Ace and Two of Jonathan Poche were enough when the board was Ace, King, Eight, Six and Jack. Poche began heads-up play with a nice advantage over his adversary Toye and Poche quickly built that lead up to a 2-1 chip advantage.

It was another half hour until the final hand showed itself. All in preflop and a call of course. Their cards:

Poche: Eights of Spades and Clubs
Toye: Jack of Spades and Eight of Hearts.

Board: Five of Spades, Three of Diamonds, Two of Clubs, Six of Diamonds and Five of Hearts

Toye was eliminated in second place and he took home $74.783 in prize money. Poche was crowned the champion of the event and he took home the top prize worth $121.017.

This was the final regular WSOP Circuit main event of the current season, although you can tune back in starting tomorrow evening for nightly recaps from the WSOP Circuit $10.000 Southern Regional Championship.

Final-Table Results:

1: Jonathan Poche — $121.017
2: Bobby Toye — $74.783
3: Josh Evans — $54.644
4: Todd Wood — $40.573
5: Scott Zakheim — $30.595
6: Jake Bazeley — $23.416
7: Billie Payne — $18.185
8: Matt Waxman — $14.324
9: James McBride — $11.441
10: Lance Craig — $9.263

Normally we use our vast knowledge and extensive contacts with a healthy dosis of intuition to get a stable of players that we feel have the best chance to get bracelets this summer. These predictions were never really successful so we opted for the shotgun.

We covered Women before and now we continue on with Chess players.
If there is a group more prepared for success we do not know of them.
The World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational in Los Angeles was dominated by two femme fatales of chess and they are en route to a final table this summer.
Almira Skripchenko and Dinara Khaziyeva didn’t win, they did prove themselves ready for big things in poker.
Over the years we have seen proof of this when chess transition to poker.
1995 WSOP Main Event champ and two-time finalist Dan Harrington is among those who played chess before he turned to poker, as is 2008 November Niner Ylon Schwartz.
Plus, child chess prodigy Jeff Sarwer emerged from a gutter position in 2009 to find incredible success on the European Poker Tour.
Sarwer took his first crack at the WSOP last year and managed to cash in three events.
He says chess players, and in fact anyone with a gaming background, usually come ready to play.
“There really is (something fundamental about chess that makes chess players successful at poker) and I think that goes for all the gaming crossovers. If you have a gaming mind then you have a lot of the same foundation. It goes for Magic the Gathering, backgammon and chess. Chess players are bringing a lot of the competitive sports psychology with them. While backgammon is more of the math side, in my opinion chess is more of a bluffing game. Because the positions are so cloudy, it gets really messy. It is a game of complete information, but it’s purely artistic at some points. So some people can be really bad at the math in chess and still succeed, which isn’t the case in poker these days. And all the pressure elements at the higher levels of chess, how to put pressure on your opponents, is very similar to poker. Also knowing when to change your approach and change your strategy.”

The thing is that a lot of mid level chess players cannot break through to the top but can make some good money playing poker and thus we see a larger instream of chess players.

“A lot of chess players look at poker as a great way to make money in gaming, especially because of the luck element. Chess players generally have a hard time dealing with the idea that you can get sucked out on, but they understand that that’s where all the value comes from. Chess players are also interested in poker because the theory is still quite young, and it’s changing every year. For all those reasons we’re going to see more and more chess players converting to poker.”

He wants that gold this summer.
After her final table appearance in the 2009 World Series of Poker’s $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, we expect to see Skripchenko joining an ever growing group of chess players there as well.
All indications point to this being the year that at least one of them ships a bracelet.
“I just think that chess players are naturally skilled to become poker players because chess involves a lot of strategic thinking. Yes, of course, there is a lot of math in poker, but this is more important than math. Math can be mastered by everyone and all the strategic and analytical skills, you have to develop.”

He is the only player to finish above the 3.000.000 mark and he crawled up the ladder with first eliminating Doyle Brunson in 24th place, Alan Sternberg in 23rd place, Abe Mosseri in 19th place and Christian Harder in 17th place on the final hand of the night when Harder shoved all-in with pocket Eights and Hall called with pocket Aces.

Hall was slap bang in the middle when the day began and now little less than half walked away empty-handed. Some of the players who busted out before the money included Steve O’Dwyer, Billy Baxter, past WPT Championship winners David Chiu and Yevgeniy Timoshenko, WPT Player of the year frontrunner Andy Frankenberger, Sam Trickett, Ryan D’Angelo, Taylor Von Kriegenbergh, Joseph Cheong, Justin Smith, Andrew Lichtenberger and Hafix Khan, this time’s bubble boy in 28th place.

Only 15 players are left at the end of the day it was a serious massacre. Brunson, Haralabos Voulgaris, Dave Ulliott and Josh Bergman are just a few of the players who cashed but busted over the course of play. The remaining players are all guaranteed at least $53.095.

Frankenberger is out and now there are still a few playes left to grab the POY award. WPT Amneville winner Sam El Sayed finished the day second in chips with 2.774.000. He and Shannon Shorr can both win the WPT POY title with a fourth place finish or better. Bay 101 runner-up Steven Kelly can win with a third place finish or better. So it is definitely up for grabs.

Scott Seiver, Nenad Medic, Justin Young, Ashton Griffin, Will Failla, Daniel Alaei are all still in the tournament as is reigning WPT Champ David Williams. Williams still has a chance to repeat at the Bellagio, but he will be the shortest stack returning for Day 5 with 318.000.

Here are the top ten chip counts headed into Day 5 of the WPT Championship event:

1. Galen Hall – 3.438.000
2. Sam El Sayed – 2.774.000
3. Roger Teska – 2.194.000
4. Scott Seiver – 2.001.000
5. Shannon Shorr – 1.786.000
6. Steven Kelly – 1.674.000
7. Tony Gargano – 1.577.000
8. Ashton Griffin – 1.474.000
9. Nenad Medic – 1.282.000
10. Justin Young – 1.249.000

WPT Amneville winner Sam el Sayed is standing at the top of the mountain with 1.107.000 chips. Hot on his heels is Nenad Medic with 1.098.500, and Bay 101 runner-up Steven Kelly rounds out the top three with 1.005.000. The last players still alive in the WPT Player of the Year Race are el Sayed and Kelly amongst others as Andy Frankenberger, Bay 101 winner Alan Sternberg, Shannon Shorr, Taylor von Kriegenbergh, Roberto Romanello, and Alex Kuzmin are still in there too.

Three previous winners are also alive now. No player has ever won the same WPT event twice, but Yevgeniy Timoshenko, David Chiu, and reigning champ David Williams are all still capable of doing just that. The best chance right now is for Chiu when he busted Curt Kohlberg and Joe Elpayaa in a three-way all-in to take down a massive pot. Chiu ended the day seventh in chips with 772.500.

They were of course not the only ones to get killed that day in the culling of the weak poker players. Daniel Negreanu, BLUFF Player of the Year frontrunner Eugene Katchalov, Jake Cody, Eric Baldwin, Erik Seidel, Barry Greenstein, Phil Hellmuth, Randal Flowers, and Shawn Cunix all hit the rail. The board was Ace of Clubs, Seven of Hearts, Five of Spades, Ace of Diamonds and Ace of Hearts and Medic called Cunix’s all in with Ace and King of Spades for the quad Aces. That hand gave Medic the chip lead and he will be one of the big stacks headed into Day 4 on Thursday.

Other players returning for Day 4 include Galen Hall, Sam Trickett, Ashton Griffin, Abe Mosseri, Joseph Cheong, Daniel Alaei, Scott Seiver, Andrew Lichtenberger, and Doyle Brunson. Play resumes at 12:00 PT on Tuesday.

Here are the top ten chip counts headed into Day 4 of the WPT Championship:

1. Sam el Sayed – 1.107.000
2. Nenad Medic – 1.098.500
3. Steven Kelly – 1.005.000
4. Christian Harder – 887.000
5. Roger Teska – 846.000
6. Shannon Shorr – 819.500
7. David Chiu – 772.500
8. Tony Gargano – 725.500
9. Justin Young – 688.000
10. Alan Sternberg – 676.500

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He spent almost the entire day as a chip leader. Two pair sent him flying to the top on the river and give Saul the short end there when he only had a straight. Saul was left with 32.000 and the 400.000 pot went to the chip leader. Mosseri finished the job though later on. He ended the day with 685.200.

The second in play is Bay 101 winner Alan Sternberg finishing with 606.400 and Steven Kelly rounding out the top three with 566.500. The total surviving mass was 116 and there were only 170 that started the day. The total registrations made the total field to 220. That field size generated a prize pool of $5.309.500. The top 27 players will finish in the money and first place will take home $1.618.344. Second place will also earn seven-figures, taking home $1.061.900.

There must be casualties and this time they were John Juanda, Freddy Deeb, Erick Lindgren, Hoyt Corkins, Dan Cates, Mike Matusow, Justin Bonomo, Scotty Nguyen, and Vivek Rajkumar. With Rajkumar’s elimination, one of Frankenberger’s biggest threats in the WPT Player of the Year race is out of the picture, but there are still plenty of players, including Sternberg and Kelly, who could pass Frankenberger with a fourth and third place finish respectively.

Half the field is gone and the stacks are deep so Day 3 will be a massacre. Play resumes at 12:00 PT on Monday.

Here are the top ten chip counts headed into Day 3 of play:

1. Abe Mosseri – 685.200
2. Alan Sternberg – 606.400
3. Steven Kelly – 566.500
4. Roger Teska – 534.900
5. Scott Seiver – 461.300
6. Josh Bergman – 415.600
7. Justin Young – 414.100
8. Robert Mercer – 408.600
9. David Peters – 401.400
10. Darren Elias – 342.900

While he got off to a slow start, Freitez looked unstoppable in the waning hours of the final table and breezed through the competition, knocking out four of his seven opponents to claim the win in one of the biggest poker tournaments of the year.

Eugene Yanayt was the one who knocked out two players right at the start getting his hands dirty. The other American Andrew Li was gone in eight when Li lost with his Three of Spades and Three of Diamonds on a board of Nine of Hearts, Nine of Diamonds, Four of Spades, Seven of Hearts and Four of Clubs to Yanayt’s Ace of Clubs and Queen of Spades.

Torsten Brinkmann stopped Yanayt with Eights to Jacks. Yanayt took revenge on Team PokerStars Pro Alex Gomes’ hopes for poker’s Triple Crown. Gomes was short on chips and shoved in from the small blind with Seven and Eight of Spades against pocket Tens and Tens won.

Yanayt had lost his luck against Andrey Danilyuk. Now he shoved all in with Fives of Spades and Diamonds. Calling with Nines of Hearts and Diamonds was Freitez and extended his lead. Minutes later, local hero Juan Maceiras busted in fifth place when he made a stand with Jack and Ten of Hearts and couldn’t best Brinkmann’s Ace of Spades and King of Diamonds.

The final four enjoyed an extended break to attend the EPT Awards and ready for the live streaming of the event with hole cards. When they returned, Freitez quickly put his big stack to use, busting Danilyuk in fourth when Freitez’s Ace of Diamonds and Nine of Clubs got an Ace on the river to give pocket Threes held by Danilyuk a boot home. After the hand, Freitez held around 70% of the chips in play.

Ace-nine was instruemental again for Freitez to kick Tamas Lendvei out holding Nines of Spades and Diamonds on a board of Ace of Spades, Ten of Hearts and Three of Diamonds. The winning card did not come zo it was Freitez against Brinkmann.

Brinkmann managed to double up with Ace and Five of Clubs against pocket Queens. Ace of Hearts and King of Clubs was kicked down by a Nine and Ten of Diamonds.

The flop was Nine of Spades, Five of Hearts and Two of Spades. A Six of Diamonds and Eight of Clubs rounded everything out and Freitez was the winner.

Freitez earns €1.500.000 for the win and becomes the first Venezuelan champ in EPT history.

This is not quite the end of the road for EPT Season 7. The tour still has one more big event on the schedule: the first-ever Champion of Champions tournament, which pits all the past EPT winners against each other as they compete for buy-in packages to use in the tour’s upcoming eighth season. That event gets underway on Friday.

Here are the final table results from the PokerStars.com EPT Grand Final Main Event:

1st: Ivan Freitez – €1.500.000
2nd: Torsten Brinkmann – €900.000
3rd: Tamas Lendvei – €550.000
4th: Andrey Danilyuk – €400.000
5th: Juan Maceiras – €315.000
6th: Eugene Yanayt – €250.000
7th: Alex Gomes – €185.000
8th: Andrew Li – €130.000

Gomes starts sixth in place with an uphill climb with a fellow South American with a lot of chips. Ivan Freitez starts with 5.885.000 and is the big kahuna of the final table. The next best thing is Andrey Danilyuk with 2.986.000. Blinds will resume at 40.000/80.000 ante 5.000.

Pedro Pellicer lost his chips to Freitez when Ace and Four of Hearts got trip Aces and so beat pocket Tens. The pot sent his stack soaring over 6 million and Pellicer ended up on the rail in 11th place a few orbits later.

Pellicer was one of 16 players to hit the rail over the cours of Day 4, most notably Victor Ramdin, who made an early exit in 23rd place when he couldn’t win a coinflip. Team PokerStars Pro Dag Palovic also missed out on the final table, going out in 14th place. Thomas Pettersson’s elimination in ninth place brought the day to a close and set the final table. Pettersson lost a pivotal coinflip with Ace of Hearts and King of Clubs to Juan Maceiras’ Queens of Diamonds and Clubs to end play. So it seems that coinflips were ruling the day.

Two USA people are left in the reace with Andrew Li, who rallied from one of the shorter stacks to make the final table, and Eugene Yanayt, who began the day as chip leader, but ended third in chips with 2.530.000.

The final table will get underway at 12PM local time tomorrow, but the action on PokerStars.tv won’t begin until 2PM, as the action is going to be live on a delay with hole cards.

Here are the chip counts and seat assignments for Thursday’s final table:

Seat 1: Eugene Yanayt – 1.440.000
Seat 2: Tamas Lendvai – 1.130.000
Seat 3: Juan Maceiras – 1.540.000
Seat 4: Andrey Danilyuk – 2.986.000
Seat 5: Thomas Pettersson – 1.365.000
Seat 6: Andrew Li – 1.520.000
Seat 7: Ivan Freitez – 5.885.000
Seat 8: Alex Gomes – 1.590.000

The final table of nine started with Ramana Epparla the dominant chip leader, hoping to make his first tournament cash a nearly six-figure score. Mixed in with the local players were a few recognizable names at the final table. Huy Nguyen, earned a seat to the $1,000,000 National Championship with his win at the WSOP-C Main Event at the Choctaw Resort in Oklahoma earlier this year. Joining Huy were Robert “Action Bob” Hwang and Ari Engel.

The final table was drawn out over quite the hours. A hour of play was needed to kick Huy Nguyen and his thirst for a second title was cut down as his pocket Fours did not hold up against Ed Cotter and a pair of Eights. Ramana Epparla ran with pocket Eights against pocket Aces held by Robert Scott. Epparla was left with two big blinds as his stack. He then moved back in second place again after doubling and tripling up, and his luck held when he dished out the killing blow against Ryan Waddell. Waddell was holding Five of Hearts and Five of Diamonds whereas Epparla had Eight and Seven of Diamonds. A flop of Eight of Clubs, Five of Spades and Four of Diamonds was favourable to Waddell. A Seven of Hearts was better for Epparla as he now had full house and gutshot straight draw possibilities. Another Seven hit the turn this time of Clubs and Waddell had to leave.

An Ace of Spades and Five of Diamonds was what brought Robert Hwang down as Robert Scott had Aces of Diamonds and Hearts. Epparla kicked out Ed Cotter with Aces when he flopped a pair of Nines on a board of Nine of Clubs, Six of Spades and Five of Diamonds with Jack and Nine of Diamonds. Unable to improve, Cotter’s bankroll welcomes the additional $17.799 for his sixth place finish.

Scott and his Ace and Six were doing better than Knitter and his flopped pair with Queen and Ten. Ari Engel doubled up Epparla and Kenny Nguyen and so shoved with Ace and King finally and lost to Eight and Six belonging to Nguyen.

Epparla was doing an immitation of Isildur1 with his wild swings and ended finally with Eights of Clubs and Spades against Ace of Clubs and Four of Spades of Scott. Nine of Hearts, Two of Spades, Two of Hearts and King of Clubs and then Scott only had three outs and a Scott supporter cried with all his might Ace of Diamonds before the dealer turned over the final card. He may have learned the skill from Daniel Negreanu as an Ace of Diamonds hit the river and send Epparla home.

The lead was held by Kenny Nguyen and extended to 4 – 1 advantage. Scott limped with Ace of Diamonds and Six of Hearts. Nguyen was holding King of Hearts and Eight of Spades. A board of Seven of Hearts, Five of Clubs, Three of Diamods and Queen of Spades made it so Scott did not have a lot of options left. A King of Clubs sealed the deal and Scott went home second to Nguyen.

WSOP-C Harrah’s Chester $1,600 Main Event Final Table Results:

1st: Kenny Nguyen – $94.901
2nd: Robert Scott – $58.639
3rd: Ramana Epparla – $42.366
4th: Ari Engel – $31.179
5th: Sean Knitter – $23.358
6th: Ed Cotter – $17.799
7th: Robert Hwang – $13.790
8th: Ryan Waddell – $10.858
9th: Huy Nguyen – $8.685