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ASSOCIATED PRESS / 2017
Damian Salas, left, is the new world champion.
After being postponed last summer, the 51st World Series of Poker Main Event concluded last week, with 55-year-old Damian Salas of Argentina emerging as the new world champion.
Salas won the event by first winning the “international” portion of the tournament, then defeating Joseph Hebert, the winner of the “domestic” tournament, in a heads-up match that lasted 173 hands. At one point Hebert had a 9-1 chip lead, but Salas survived multiple all-in bets and worked his way into the lead. On the final hand, Salas had K-J to Hebert’s A-Q. Two kings fell in the community cards to give Salas the win.
The $10,000-buy-in tournament had 1,379 entrants — 705 from the United States and 674 international players. By comparison, the 2019 WSOP Main Event had 8,569 entrants.
Back to one: One of two buffets operating currently in Las Vegas closed last week. The Wicked Spoon Buffet at the Cosmopolitan has shut down “temporarily” until “business levels improve,” at which point the decision will be reevaluated. Apparently, conducting business under the 25%-capacity and reservations-only restrictions isn’t sustainable, even for a popular buffet that was nearly alone in the field. That leaves South Point as Las Vegas’ only all-you-can-eat option.
Back to closed: Encore opened full time last week to take advantage of New Year’s traffic, but has now gone back to its weekends- only schedule. Both Encore and the Mirage were open full time, but are now closed completely Mondays through Wednesdays.
Question: What was the scene for New Year’s Eve in Vegas?
Answer: The downtown party was canceled on New Year’s Eve, but revelers gathered on the Strip to celebrate.
No crowd estimates have been released, but reports are that the number was in the thousands, far below the normal counts of hundreds of thousands. Still, Las Vegas took some criticism for allowing any sort of gathering at all.
For more information about current Las Vegas shows, buffets, coupons, and good deals, go to LasVegasAdvisor.com.
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