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Today in the 3-Bet we find Tom Marchese quietly locking down another 7-figure score, Sam Grafton breaks down the Dan Colman saga and Allen Cunningham returns to glory on the Heartland Poker Tour.
1) Marchese Claims Aria $100k
While Dan Colman lives out the six-month stretch of a lifetime in a brightly-lit media bubble Tom "@BigCheese_poker" Marchese just keeps winning huge tournaments out of the spotlight.
A fairly low-key $100k Super High Roller tournament played out last Friday at Aria in Las Vegas with Marchese emerging with his second 7-figure score in four months.
According to Poker Telegraph 22 entries made it into the prize pool with high-roller regs Joe Cheong, Andrew Robl, Igor Kurganov, Phillip Gruissem, David Sands and Doug Polk among those playing.
Just three places were paid with Marchese claiming $1.3m for the win, Cary Katz taking $653,400 for second and ElkY impersonator Brian Rast earning $217,800 for third.
Marchese had just one WSOP cash this summer in the $10k PLO Championship he still made $1.4m for a third in the $100k Bellagio Super High Roller. While Colman begrudgingly lives out every grinder's dream in the spotlight Marchese is living out Colman's - quietly raking millions well outside poker's media circus.
2) Grafton on Poker and Silence
If you follow British poker pro Sam Grafton on Twitter you already know him as one of the funniest, most well read and engaged people in the business.
After mulling over the Dan Colman/One Drop saga Grafton has now gone a step above 140 characters and put together his thoughts in a brilliant new post on RunItOnce.
As you might expect it's an eloquent and thought-provoking piece on "poker and silence" from an insider's perspective that puts a "coda" on things quite nicely.
We'd excerpt the piece here but it's much better you read it in its entirety lest we mangle any context. Some amazing points can be found on the "death of the feel player" in poker, shaping poker's narrative in the mainstream and the future of the poker economy.
Some quick words worth looking up in the dictionary before you do, though: coda, dogma, protean, callow, cogent, promulgate, antipathy, autodidact and tapestry.
Not saying we needed to but, uh, we may have thumbed the Websters just for clarification on a couple.
3) He's Still Allen Cunningham!
If you, like us, got irrevocably committed to the careers of Norman Chad and Allen Cunningham following the 2006 WSOP, you're with us in celebrating this one.
After a long and storied career with $12m in live tourney earnings and 70 final tables, Cunningham is the chip leader at the final table of the latest Heartland Poker Tour event at Agua Caliente Casino and Resort in Rancho Mirage, California.
The final nine and chip counts:
Seat 1. Bob McMillian - 482,000 Seat 2. Stan Jablonski - 204,000 Seat 3. Raffi Der Gerigorian - 464,000 Seat 4. Ronald Segni - 192,000 Seat 5. Allen Cunningham - 1,509,000 Seat 6. Chris Tolone - 1,079,000 Seat 7. Alex Madriaga - 952,000 Seat 8. Michael Rocco - 896,000 Seat 9. Brent Thompson - 742,000
Would it really matter if the 37-year-old retired pro claimed his first HPT title and $74,276? For some strange reason, yes. Yes it would.
Even if he doesn't know exactly where he is:
I final tabled the @HPTpoker tour at somewheresville, Palm desert, CA I think? In the heartland anyway. Chip leader!
— Allen Cunningham (@AllenCunningham) September 8, 2014Rail the live updates today right here and, if you like, complement any Cunningham pots with our handy Norman Chad/Lon McEachern soundboard. There's no "He's Allen Cunningham," but it'll put you in the right era at least.
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