Weekly Tournament Recap: Darren Elias Conquers Borgata, Daniel Smith Celebrating in Cannes

The last week in poker provided a few major poker tournaments around the world. Whether it was in Europe, the US, Asia or online, a few players ended up richer after they've performed well over the last week.

Darren Elias the Man at Borgata

The WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship came to a close over the weekend, and the last man sitting was Darren Elias. The poker veteran outlasted 1,225 other entrants to take out the event and the $843,744 first place prize.

According to Hendon, the live poker tournament cash prize is Elias’ largest by far, and puts his career live event earnings at over $2.5 million. It’s the latest achievement in what has been a good year in poker for Elias, who also placed in the money at four WSOP events in May and June.

Kane Kalas was the runner-up at the Borgata Poker Open, while Jose Serratos and Aaron Overton took third and fourth place respectively.

Takayama Reigns Surpreme in Manila

A total of 366 players descended on the Filipino capital, Manila, to play in the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Manila Main Event last week. That was cut to just 210 players after the two starting flights. One of those 210 was hometown player Mike Takayama, and he eventually ended the event as the winner.

As a result, Takayama took home 3,453,000 Philippines Pesos, which worked out to be a little over US$79,000. The APT Manila was the second straight professional event that Takayama has won. He also took out the HK$4,000 No Limit Hold’em – Six Max event at the Macau Poker Cup last month.

Fellow Filipino Emmanuel Imperial finished the event in second place to ensure that the top two spots for home boys. Singaporean Alex Lee came in third place while Australian player Denis Huntly took out the event’s fourth spot.

Smith Takes Out Unibet Open

The Unibet Open Cannes Main Event took place last week in the picturesque city in south of France. Monaco-based British poker shark Daniel Smithoutlasted the 457-player field to win the event and the €88,000 (around US$113,374) cash prize that came along with it.

Smith actually had a major chip deficit when he went into heads-up play with the eventual runner-up Michael Nielsen. However, he bode his time and literally played his cards right en route to getting the chip lead and eventually winning the event.

French player Alain Roy finished the event in third place while Davor Pavic took the fourth place.

WCOOP Continues

The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) continued over the last week. One of the biggest WCOOP events played in that period was the $215 No Limit Hold’em event, which was won by PokerStars user ‘treven7’.

‘Treven7’ topped the total field of 2,636 to win the event along with the $59,975.61 cash prize for the first place. Finnish player ‘dasRektum$’ may have had to settle for the second spot, but he took home the largest cash prize ($64,508.99) of all players at the event as a result of a deal between the top three players.

UK player ‘DJG1989’ took home third place, but also cashed out $63,989.76 as a result of the aforementioned deal.