When Event #54, the inaugural Crazy Eights Eight Handed No Limit Hold’em, kicks off on Friday, July 1 at the Rio in Las Vegas, CardsChat will have a talented team of 18 players participating, and among them will be a 2016 WSOP bracelet winner in Ryan Laplante.
The tournament is expected to draw a massive crowd. And hopefully, one of our players will walk away with the gold bracelet. Besides competing in the actual event, the players will be competing with each other as well for a variety of prizes.
CardsChat will be covering a portion of each player’s $888 buyin fee. This will be the third time a team of players have represented CardsChat in a WSOP event. The first two were in the Little One for One Drop events in 2014 and 2015.
WSOP co-sponsor 888poker is behind this new event, and the leading global poker site has guaranteed an $888,000 first-place prize waiting for the winner. The action at the Rio starts on Friday, and is scheduled to conclude on Monday, July 4th. The first two days of play will be start days, with two flights on each day, which should give you an idea that they are anticipating a large field for this tournament.
Laplante Joins Team CC
Ryan Laplante, a WSOP 2016 bracelet winner in Event #12, the $565 Pot-Limit Omaha earlier this summer, will be part of Team CardsChat as well. Perhaps he will pick up his second WSOP title of the summer.
Ryan has made quite a mark on the World Series of Poker this month. He already has nine cashes during the series and is in the running for Player of the Year. Laplante, an openly gay poker player who gave an emotional bracelet ceremony speech following the Orlando tragedy, has won nearly $800,000 in live poker tournament cashes during his career.
Circuit Pro Part of the Team
Rex Clinkscales, a respected player on the poker circuit, is one of the 18 team players who will be representing CardsChat. He has won over $900,000 in live tournaments cashes and has been a consistent performer in WSOP Circuit events around the country.
Clinkscales ranks 148th on Nevada’s all-time live tournament money list. His biggest finish came in September 2015, when he finished 2nd in the Heartland Poker Tour Main Event for $144,069. Last year, Rex pulled off a min-cash in the WSOP Main Event as well.
Holloway Making a Run
Chad Holloway, a CardsChat contributor, will be one of the competitors representing the Crazy Eights team. A long-time poker media industry professional, Chad won a bracelet in 2013 in the $500 Casino Employees tournament. Just this week, he finished 81st out of a 6,297-player starting field in Event #41, the popular $1,500 Monster Stack No-Limit Hold’em championship.
Holloway is well-respected in the poker industry and a talented player in his own right. We’re pleased to have him on board and wish him well in the Crazy Eights.
Forum Admin On Board
Debi O’Neill, our forum admin, will be entering the Crazy Eights tournament as well, hoping to land her own first World Series gold bracelet. She is a recreational player from Georgia and has represented CardsChat for the past three years in team events.
“We are very excited about this year’s event,” said O’Neill. “We have some great players representing CardsChat and it will be an exciting race to see who lasts the longest. I think most of us will have our eyes on Ryan Laplante, who is having a phenomenal year so far,” she added.
The Rest of the Team
In total, there will be 11 women and seven men representing CardsChat for this event, thus going outside the more male-heavy paradigm that still exists overall in WSOP poker tournament events.
Players will have a “last longer” bet going, with the winner receiving an additional $688: namely, the rest of their buyin not already sponsored by CC.
If you are out at the Rio during this event, make sure you look for the aforementioned players wearing CardsChat hoodies and hats, as well as the rest of the talented team. That includes: Nancy Birnbaum, Donna Houle, Persia Bonella, Maria Paraltore, Brittany Barrera, Joe Mussat, Joe Sicko, Eric Sawyer, Liz Tedder, Demetric Ferguson, Kristin Ting, Ruth Hall, Jacki Burkhalt, and Donna Scruggs.
We are excited to have all of these players representing our team in the Crazy Eights event at the World Series of Poker. They are a mix of world-class pros and recreational players. We’ll be cheering them on throughout this tournament.
