The Free Poker Network Chasin’ Bracelets National Championship has come to an end and Joel Smith has claimed the FPN bracelet and a $11,500 Main Event prize package. This is Smith’s second FPN National Championship after he first claimed victory in 2015.

Smith outlasted a field of 225 qualifiers to emerge victorious after he defeated Greg Larson in heads-up play. He caps off a brilliant weekend that saw a deep run to fourth place in the Tag Team Championship with his wife, Nikki.

Larson and the rest of the top-20 finishers took home $1,500. Brett Zimmerman finished in third, while Lester Hauglid and Brad Craig rounded out the top five.

“It’s surreal. I don’t really know what to say,” Smith said in his post-win interview with PokerNews.

Smith was down early at the final table, but he’s been in spots like this before. Smith fought back from a 3:1 deficit in heads-up play to take the lead with a better kicker after players flopped the top pair.

“I didn’t give up. You just never know. Any hand can be the one that turns things around and makes things go your way.”

Smith attends the WSOP regularly, but the $11,500 Main Event package will make this one unique.

“We usually play the other events every Summer, like the Colossus and other small buy-ins. This will be very special.”

2023 FPN Chasin’ Bracelets National Championship Final Table Results

Players came from all over the country after winning their seats in local and online tournaments, as well as through instant win opportunities and other drawings. Those that did not qualify throughout the year still had the chance to come to Las Vegas to play in four different qualifiers that were offered throughout the weekend.

Among those that found their way to the winner’s circle but couldn’t make it to the final table are Ken Beach, Al Reese, Boyd Brandsrud, Lori Salmon, Larry Sundberg, Andy Lagarge, Nels Peterson, John Aduana, Maya Cuccaro, Adam Sabatka, and Russ Neil.

check out the results from the FPN Tag Team Championship

Final Table Action

Zimmerman came into the final table with the only stack over 1,000,000, and Larson was not far behind in second. The first to go was Ed Cavaciuti in ninth place when he got it all in with two callers, but David Kalet beat him with a pair of pocket kings.

Soon after, Craig Ashley hit the rail when he got it in with the best hand, but the board brought a full house for Larson and Ashley was out in eighth. On the very next hand, it was Kalet who got it in with ace-jack against Smith’s suited ace-eighth, but Smith spiked an eight on the river to send Kalet home in seventh place.

Kevin Spain came back from a short break and shoved with a pair of pocket tens. The two callers checked it down to the end, but Larson made a pair of kings to eliminate him in sixth place.

Five-handed play stretched out as players jockeyed for position down the stretch. After nearly two levels without an elimination, but Craig broke the stalemate when he shoved with a suited nine-seven, but Larson took him out in fifth place with queen-ten.

Hauglid was out in fourth place as the blinds escalated rapidly. He got it in with a suited ace-five, but Larson was there once again to score the knockout with Big Slick.

Three-handed play lasted a matter of moments before Zimmerman was committed to the pot with his small stack. Smith flopped a flush to take him out and bring the tournament to heads-up play.

Larson had a big lead going into heads-up play with over 3,000,000 chips to Smith’s sub-million stack, but Smith went on the comeback trail quickly and retook the lead with the better kicker after both players flopped a pair.
Smith didn’t look back after he took the lead and the big moment came when Larson shoved with mid-pair and Smith eliminated him with the top pair of queens.

What’s Next for FPN?

Free Poker Network will return to Las Vegas January 4-7, 2024 for the FPN Vegas $100,000 World Championship and the race is on for players to grab their spot.

New changes to the format for 2023 include:

• A new weekly national qualifier where the top three players in every league game will earn an invitation to play. Weekly national qualifier tournament winners will take home a direct seat in the 2024 FPN $100K World Championship Main Event.
• League champions will earn a direct seat into the FPN Vegas $100K World Championship Main Event.
• Pre-qualify for up to 4x starting stack (previously 3x)

Players can still qualify through normal means, including online and local tournaments, drawings, instant win scratch cards, and the Tournament of Champions.

Check out free poker network for more information on the FPN Vegas $100K World Championship

Live Reporting Executive

Las Vegas-based PokerNews Live Reporting Executive, originally from Chicago, IL

The final day of $5,300 The Return at The Borgata in Atlantic City ended on Sunday night. The overwhelmingly successful event smashed the $3 million guarantee with a prize pool that reached $5,538,700 thanks to a massive turnout of 1,142 entries. The exciting final table of action saw the final eight play down to a winner in about seven hours of play.

Coming out on top as the winner of the $1,000,000 grand prize was prolific player Bin Weng, who quintupled his previous biggest score and moved his career tournament earnings close to $3 million according to the Hendon Mob.

Weng has been playing many events over the past two years and accumulating many results, but it has not been all smooth sailing for Weng recently.

“To be honest, right now I am happy for sure but I don’t know why I am just not excited at all. I just feel like I was supposed to get this one because for the past six or seven months it was the worst downswing I have ever suffered,” he explained afterward, indicating that this result was very important to him. “I took a whole month’s break in December. I skipped the WPT Wynn Series and tried to figure out what my leaks were. So winning this one means a lot to me and hope this heater can continue.”

$5,300 The Return Final Table Results

_{*indicates deal made at final table}

The Philadelphia native also discussed how special it was for him to win specifically in Atlantic City at the Borgata.

“I used to play here a lot. Cash games, tournaments, casino games, I lost a lot of money here,” he said with a chuckle. “I love the Borgata! Borgata is my favorite and my wife’s favorite. She will occasionally travel with me for poker but this stop is her favorite.”

Weng is known for his wide-hand selection, high variance, and exciting style of play as he is often putting his chips to work and putting his opponents under pressure. And he would do just that for much of this tournament, including a key hand where he gained his big chip lead back late on Day 2 when he called a turn-bet with a naked pair of fours and would be rewarded with a set on the river to crack aces.

At the final table, that high variance would continue as he explained some of his strategies going in.

“I am playing for the trophy, I play for the win. If you watch the stream, you will see that I take a lot of risk on high-variance lines because I just want to win, to be honest. I also wanted to avoid big pots with Joe McKeehen (chip leader to start the day). I really didn’t think that detailed on strategy though, I just pretend I go to a normal tournament and play my best. Try not to make mistakes.”

Action of the Day

The day began with eight and would remain eight-handed for a decent amount of time before Sam Laskowitz, who days earlier won the $2,200 Mystery Bounty event for $146,609, was the first one to go, and it denied him the chance for two victories during the series. Christopher Ng was the next to go in seventh place not long after, securing by far his largest result by more than 10 times.

Local player Lanny Vaysman went out in sixth as he made his mark on the tournament with his talkative style of play. Justin Saliba and Jonathan Borenstein finished in fifth and fourth place respectively after neither one of them were able to get much going during the final table.

The story entering the day was 2015 WSOP Main Event champ McKeehen as he began with a huge chip lead. For much of the early part of the day, it appeared as though McKeehen was going to run over the final table and cruise to a victory. But that all changed three-handed, starting when he lost a big flip to Weng when his jacks were shredded by ace-king. After that, his luck got worse as he was done in by an unlikely river twice in a row to go out in third place.

Sundiata Devore began the final table as the second-shortest stack but he would steadily climb up into the middle and then make his move three-handed as he amassed chips to enter heads-up play with a near-even stack with Weng and the two players agreed to make the payouts more even. However, he would ultimately succumb as he was chipped away over the course of about an hour of heads-up play to finish as the runner-up.

That concludes the PokerNews coverage of The Return – A Borgata Championship event. Be sure to join the PokerNews team for live coverage of all of your favorite tournaments around the world in 2023.

Houston billionaire furniture store owner Jim McIngvale, more commonly known as “Mattress Mack,” is once again putting his money where his mouth is on a Texas sports team.

The founder of the Gallery Furniture retail chain has wagers exceeding $3 million on the heavy underdog Texas (TCU) Horned Frogs in Monday night’s College Football Championship Game against the Georgia Bulldogs, the defending champs.

Mattress Mack, who backed a group of Houston-area poker players this past summer at the 2022 World Series of Poker, has a penchant for making massive sports bets.

This past fall, he won a sports betting record $72 million when his beloved Houston Astros won baseball’s World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Man with a Plan

There’s a method to McIngvale’s madness. He isn’t just a degenerate gambler with too much money to spend. Instead, he’s a brilliant salesman who uses these highly publicized sports wagers to promote his business.

In the $10 million to win $72 million World Series wager, he offered a win-win promotion to his customers. When the Astros won, he refunded the thousands of customers that spent over $3,000 on mattresses during the promotional period. And if the Phillies were to have won, well, Gallery Furniture would have received thousands of new customers.

Mattress Mack’s wager on TCU, which is spread across multiple sportsbooks including Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings, and WynnBet, also comes with a similar promotion, which he explained in the following video:

Sports Betting for Beginners: What Is Over/Under?

Can TCU Actually Win the Game?

If TCU loses, Mattress Mack will likely win even though his sports bets will be lost. That’s because he stands to gain thousands of new mattress sales due to the promotion.

The Horned Frogs have been college football’s biggest surprise story of 2022, going 12-0 in the regular season one year after finishing 5-7. They followed up the unbeaten record with a victory over Kansas State in the Big-12 Championship game last month, and then an upset over Big Ten champion Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl, the College Football Playoff semifinals.

On Monday at 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN) at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the Cinderella story could come to a fairy-tale ending with a win over the heavily favored (-13) Georgia Bulldogs.

Georgia, the SEC conference champions, are 14-0 overall like TCU. They have a steady quarterback — Stetson Bennett — who has experience playing in and winning the championship game (2021), and one of the most physical and athletic defenses in the country. The Bulldogs can put up numbers offensively and shut down a high-powered offense on the other side of the ball.

Not only that, but they escaped a marginally tough schedule unscathed. TCU, on the other hand, competed in an objectively weak Big-12 conference, and had no quality out-of-conference wins until the bowl game against Michigan.

But they’ve played underdog all year, and they’re still unbeaten, one win away from being crowned national champions. Few gave TCU a shot against Michigan, and virtually no one before the season predicted the Horned Frogs would even compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff. So, there’s at least a puncher’s chance that Mattress Mack’s wager will come through.

Quarterback Max Duggan, a surprise Heisman Trophy finalist, has been silencing critics all year. Who is to say he, and the Horned Frogs, won’t do it one last time on Monday?

That said, Georgia covering the 13-point spread is the most likely outcome. That’s our prediction and we’re sticking to it.

_{*Images sourced from Twitter.}