The METRO75 Champions
October 2, 2007
Who has been winning The Metro Seventy-five, our weekly P75,000 guaranteed tournament? Read on and find out!
The Metro75 is arguably the best regular multi-table tournament in town. With a P75,000 guaranteed pot, the best structure, and a sweet-spot buy-in of P2,200, it has never failed to fill at least 5 tables, giving players a juicy P100,000-P120,000 to play for, on the average.
It has also attracted the best tournament players that the local poker scene has to offer. A conservative estimate of the combined cash finishes of the dozen or so elite poker players who join every week? Somewhere around 10 MILLION pesos over the past couple of years, along with a handful who finished ITM in international tournaments like the APPT and WSOP.
So who are the METRO75 Tournament winners?
The first ever METRO75 tournament was won by Eric Mendoza (left), an accomplished cash and tournament player whose face is very well known in any poker room in the local scene. This young professional player started playing poker a few years ago, and has never looked back since. He was part of the Philippine Contingent to the World Series of Poker, plus he also has several top finishes in local tournaments in the past year, among other things. You’ll see this guy sitting in the biggest cash games in town, plus also playing the biggest tournaments around. Any doubts about this guy being the real thing can be disputed by the fact that he placed SECOND in the third METRO75 tournament, almost clinching his 2nd title out of three tournaments!
The 2ndMETRO75 Tournament was bulldozed by 26 year old professional race car driver and poker aficionado Renan Morales (pictured with Chris Ferguson at the WSOP 2007). A local rounder who was also part of the Philippine crew who headed to Las Vegas for the WSOP, (where he finished in the money in one of the side tournaments) his loose aggressive style is well-known in the poker community and he is a force to be reckoned with in both cash games and tournaments. Needles to say, he smashed through the competition with a huge stack all the way to his 1st METRO75 title.
The third Metro75 was won by Thotee Alano. This self-proclaimed poker “newbie” has been playing live and online for about a year now, and this was his first major finish (and 1st place) in a major live tournament. He humbly admits being honored to be a part of the winners circle considering the league of players he has been placed with, but then that is the beauty of the game of poker! Just like Chris Moneymaker who played his FIRST live tournament in the 2003 WSOP (eventually outlasting 800+ players to win $2.5 million, triggering what is now known as the poker boom), Thotee took a chance and faced great odds to emerge the winner of the third METRO75 tournament, proving that poker is a great equalizer. He now looks forward to proving he can do it again and winning another Championship!
The 4th METRO75 was won by a very well-know player in the local poker scene, and probably the top money winner among all women poker players in the country today, Barb Galan (pictured claiming the prize for her 10th place finish in the recent Charity Tournament). Barb has been playing poker most of her life, and has been playing professionally online for several years now. You will find her in almost all major poker tournaments all over the country, be it Tagaytay, Davao, or Cebu. Although she doesn’t play high stakes cash games, her tournament play is hard to match up against. Proof is, she has cashed over a million pesos in local tournaments in the past 2 years, and is a consistent ITM finisher too. You can catch Barb ripping up the Sit n Go’s online at FullTilt and Pokerstars under her name Barbiemanila.
The fifth Metro75 was won by businessman Philip Abadilla. He has been playing poker for the past 2 years and does not discriminate between stakes and games, playing everything from low to high stakes. Aside from his business, is also into golf and scuba diving, but he has a big passion fr poker. He also participated in the recently concluded APPT $2,500 buy-in tournament filled with international caliber players. Philip now regularly plays at the Metro.
The 6th Metro75 turned out to be a long tournament lasting almost 8 hours, with the final table being filled with veteran local poker players that all played a solid game. Eventually, the last 4 players decided to chop the pot, winning 24,000 each, but of course they had to play on for the pride of owning the Metro75 shirt and name plate! The honor went to regular player Les Tan, a familiar face among friendly home tournaments and big Multi Table tournaments all over Manila. Les started playing almost 2 years ago and has been hooked ever since. He considers himself “lucky” to win this tournament, but in poker, you really do need luck to win it all. He plays the Metro75 every week hoping to be the first repeat champion!
For the first time, we have a back to back champion! Leslie Tan defied all odds and won the 7th Metro75 right after winning last week! After a grueling 7 hour game, the players made a deal when it was 3-handed to split the cash prize, and play for the title. Les had no problem disposing of the last 2 players when he became super big stack and bagged his 2nd title in a row. For a Tournament like this, winning 2 in a row is a big feat. Congratulations to Les! He’s playing again for sure, and if he does it again, it will be very hard to match his accomplishment!
The 8th METRO75 tournament was won by Genghis Khan. Genghis has been playing poker for two years now, and is a veteran tournament player. A notable win was when he bagged first place in the 300K Guaranteed NLHE tournament in The Runners Card Club in San Lazaro Leisure Park. Going in to the final table with a big stack, he showed his tournament experience and managed to make his way through a tough field including TWO previous Metro75 Tournaments, Barb Galan and Philip Abadilla. Genghis won his second major tournament and the bragging rights of having his name up the wall, plus of course the famed Metro75 shirt!
The 9th Metro75 was won by Hubert Sy. A poker player who’s been playing for a year now, he participated in the recently concluded $2,500 Asia Pacific Poker Tour Philippine event. He won his seat through a satellite tournament, showing he has the skills to win big MTT’s. He can now add his win here to his list of poker accomplishments.
The 10th Metro75 was taken down by veteran poker player Jorge Lontoc A retired mktg exec, Who currently invests in the stock market and plays a lot of poker too. He’s won some freerolls and even 1 limit hold’em tourny last june. Been playing poker hi-lo split pot for 20yrs, hold’em since oct last year. he plays cash games more than tournaments, and doesn’t like multiple rebuys games. Hence the Metro75 structure was perfect for him. Now he’s got another notch on his belt with his name on the wall and his custom shirt!
The 11th Metro75 was won by 34 yr. old IT professional Erik Ong. The prize pool of P100,000 netted him a P38,000 payday! He has been playing poker for about 2 years now, and is an avid tournament player. This isn’t his first tournament win, but it is one of his biggest. His name now goes up the wall along with the other Metro75 winners.
The 12th Metro 75 was won by veteran poker player Derick Hernandez. An 8 year veteran of the game, he has been playing long before the poker community in the Philippines became mainstream. He play almost every kind of poker, and has no other profession except to play poker! No wonder he is a feared high stakes cash game player, and also a tournament expert. He was the only Filipino to make it to the final table of Pokerstars’ APPT Manila poker tournament which had a $2,500 buy in, where he got busted out by 2 consecutive bad beats with QQ and AA. He won $11,000+ for that finish. He can now add another notch on his belt with this METRO 75 win! You can find Derick at the big cash games at the Metro.
So far, The METRO75 has proven to be an excellent filter for determining luck vs. skill, seeing the profile of the previous winners. So the next METRO75 is coming up soon… who wants their name on the wall and the exclusive shirt the most? If you think you have what it takes to be the next METRO75 Champion, then we’ll see you at the tables.
We will be updating this page every week with the new winners of The Metro Seventy-Five.
The METRO75, Wednesdays at 8pm. See you there!
Does anyone else have any experience with this?