Posted on August 16, 2019 by Roy Smith
Winning Poker Network CEO Phil Nagy captured the Americas Cardroom Cage Live title in Costa Rica with 35,850 in chips when time ran out on the clock.
With each chip worth $1, Nagy secured $35,850 minus the $5,250 buy-in for a net profit of $30,600. The WPN CEO had exercised the Double Buy option before the contest started, giving him an extra 5,000 chips at the ready whenever he elected to put that stack into play.
He never needed to, amassing more chips than any other player after the 12-hour Cage Live match ended. Landing in 2nd place was online poker tournament superstar Chris Moorman, who bagged $29,550.
This is the final chip count of the day.#CageLiveEvent #ChipCountUpdate pic.twitter.com/zMh8wbYfO5
— Americas Cardroom (@ACR_POKER) August 12, 2019
The Cage Live is a cash game and tournament hybrid of sorts, played over two days, six hours each day, with increasing blind levels. Once the cash game action begins, players are forbidden to leave unless they bust. No late registrations allowed.
Played six times a year at the Taormina Hotel & Casino in San Jose, Costa Rica, the Cage Live has become a centerpiece of Americas Cardroom marketing efforts. A $55 Beast and Sit & Crush Cage Live satellite is held every Sunday at 6:00 p.m. ET at the site, with two seats to the Cage Live guaranteed.
Those Cage Live prize packages are valued at $8,340 and include the $5,250 buy-in, $800 for travel, spending cash of $1,340, and a three-night stay at the Taormina Hotel. The final two Cage Live events in 2019 will be held on October 4-7 and December 6-9, and played as Pot Limit Omaha.
Conflict of Interest?
Nagy typically plays in every Cage Live event as Americas Cardroom’s home base is located in Costa Rica. Some have questioned the CEO’s participation in the contest as being improper, while others appreciate the opportunity to mix it up with the WPN boss.
Americas Cardroom continues to have its critics, but Nagy playing in a live event hosted by ACR appears to be way down the list of player grievances. Topping the list of complaints as of late has been service interruptions at WPN sites that caused a number of tournaments to be cancelled.
A software update that began a few months ago apparently hasn’t fully taken hold as a number of glitches still need to be ironed out. But those issues didn’t stop the successful running of the $5 million guaranteed Venom last month that set the record as the largest online poker tournament ever hosted by a US-friendly site.
The prize pool surpassed $6 million and a Guinness World Record was set when the winner received more than $1 million in Bitcoin minutes after the final hand was dealt. A new Venom event is scheduled for November and December and odds are good that the glitches caused by the software revamp will be fixed and forgotten by then.
What shouldn’t be forgotten is that ACR and sister site Black Chip Poker accept more than 60 cryptocurrencies. Deposits and withdrawals are handled smoothly as a result, eliminating some of the payment processing issues that arose at online poker sites before Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies arrived on the scene.
