Run It Up Reno Completes 6th Stop at Peppermill Casino

On March 26th, the Run It Up Reno series returned to the Peppermill Casino Reno in Nevada for its sixth iteration. Fifteen events were featured over its eight day schedule with buy-ins ranging from as low as $125 to as high as $1,100, with its main event reasonably priced at just $600. Once again, the Jason Somerville hosted series proved a massive success, and as the Team PokerStars Pro commented after its completion:
“There have been players from Australia, Alaska, The UK, Germany, even Russia to Run it Up Reno. It’s insane. We have a guy in Sweden who takes a 6- hour bus ride to Stockholm and then flies here!”
Peppermill Casino Reno
Run It Up Reno takes place at the Peppermill Resort Spa Casino in Nevada, with its hotel offering 1,621 luxurious bedrooms, two swimming pools, spas, boutique shops, a nightclub, bars, lounges and award-winning restaurants. The resort’s casino also offers hundreds of slot machines and table games, as well as an elegant poker room.
The venue was subsequently chosen as an ideal venue to host the live poker series, which is an off shoot of the popular Run it Up twitch stream hosted by Jason Somerville, a WSOP-bracelet winner with $3,633,626 in live and $2,245,196 in online earnings. Needless to say, Run It Up Reno has proven a great boon for the Peppermill Resort, and as its poker room manager Mike Nelson explains:
“Almost 20% of our field comes from 1000 miles or more. It’s truly a worldwide event and that is probably the thing we take the most pride in.. We get a lot of people that say, wow, I didn’t know Reno was this good. I know it’s our little secret but we are spreading the word.”
DJ Fenton Wins main Event
The Run It Up Reno $600 Main Event attracted 500 runners, and amongst the notable pros cashing in at the tournament was Andrew Neeme in 73rd ($920), Lex Veldhuis in 51st ($1,050), Ian Steinman in 22nd ($1,780), and Chris Moneymaker in 11th ($2,620).
Jaime Staples was the most recognizable pro to make the final table, and managed to survive until being sent to the rail in 3rd place ($26,320), leaving DJ Fenton and Paul Sampson to battle it out for the title. At one stage, Sampson even managed to forge ahead to a 11-to-1 chip lead, but Fenton fought back well and after seizing the lead the deciding hand was played with his raising preflop holding pocket jacks, and Sampson making the call with 6-5.
Sampson then got his remaining chips all-in on an 8-5-2 flop, and after an 8 and 7 falling on turn and river, he had to settle for a second place finish worth $38,770. Meanwhile, Fenton, who together with his wife serves at the Beale Air Force Base in Marysville, California collected $56,200 for the win, representing all but $2,454 of his previous cashes. Commenting after his victory, Fenton said:
“A lot of the people here are like ‘Oh yeah, he streams, he vlogs, he’s a pro, he’s an online pro.’ I’m not in the scene, I don’t know most of the people, you know? But yeah, I’m in the scene now.”
Final Table Results:
1: DJ Fenton $56,200
2: Paul Sampson $38,770
3: Jaime Staples $26,320
4: Nathan Manuel $17,030
5: Peter Lynn $10,840
6: Ryan Carter $7,600
7: Daoud Majid $5,500
8: Daniel Jones $3,700
Other Winners
Other players wining events at Run It Up Reno included Camilo Uribe ($235 NLH Kickoff, Patrick Preston ($125 NLH All In of Fold), Dwight Ross ($235 NLHE Knockout), Kim Stone ($125 HORSE), Shawn Van Arsdale ($235 6-Max 8-Game Championship), Jimmy Cappucci ($1,100 Thursday Thrilla), Kamil Nagji ($125 NL 3-Card Super Hold’em), Adam Poulack ($125 6-Max OE, Albert Ng ($235 6-Max PLO Bounty), Kevin Gerhart ($550 6-Max 8-Game Dealer’s Choice), Brendon Kaufman ($150 NLH Turbo $25 Bounty), Eddie Cybulski ($125 6-Max NLH Deepstacks), and Andre Hengchua ($125 Taiwanese Poker).
The most notable pro to win a tournament, however, was Jaime Staples who overcame a field of 232 players at the $125 Win the Button event for $5,100. Furthermore, he did so while live streaming the entire tournament on his mobile phone, after which he commented:
“I don’t think this has been done before, think this is a first for poker, from a first-person perspective anyway. It’s obviously not going to work at every venue, but here at Run It Up Reno, it’s based around streaming. We are able to stream the events and it’s a lot of fun. It gives a different angle at what playing poker is like.”