A regular player in Bobby's Room at the Bellagio casino and the biggest cash poker games in the world, American poker player Matt Glantz came to London a high roller but he will leave the UK capital the 2009 PokerStars London EPT High Roller champion.
Glantz, who is a native of Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, outwitted a field of seventy-five elite poker player to take home the title and 542,000 pounds 1st place cash prize on October 2nd, 2009. Glantz said that there were a lot of great poker players in the tournament. He added that out of the top one hundred poker tournament players in the world, fifty to sixty players participated in the tournament.
Among those who put up the 20,000 pounds buy-in were Full Tilt poker pros Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Phil Ivey, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott and Team PokerStars Pros Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Barry Greenstein and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. The final table featured 2007 World Poker Tour Five Diamond champion Eugene Katchalov, 2008 WSOP November Niner Dennis Phillips and online poker legend Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies.
Glantz defeated Erik Cajelais in the heads-up showdown, a week after Cajelais won his first major poker event, winning the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe $2,500 Pot- Limit Holdem/Pot-Limit Omaha poker event.
Primarily a cash-game poker pro, Glantz's previous top event finish was a 4th place finish for $568,320 at the 2008 World Series of Poker $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event and stated that he plays poker tournaments more for the competition than the prize money. He added that he finds it fascinating and challenging to get inside the head of his opponents.
Glantz, who regularly blogs about playing high=stakes cash, prop wagering, cross booking and playing Chinese Poker for $1,000 at a point with some of the best players in the game, said that he hopes that the prize money does not get bled off there. Glantz plans on participating at the main event of the PokerStars EPT London before going back to the US.
11/09/2009 23:13 PM