Event 1 Day 2: An Interview with the Champion Benton Blakeman

$500 NLHE Madness Kickoff
Day 2
$200,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 28: 100,000/200,000 with a 200,000 ante
Players Remaining: 1 of 526

Benton Blakeman is primarily a cash game player, but he made one of the few times per year he jumps into a tournament a good choice when he took down the title in the Madness Kickoff event here at Resorts World on the Las Vegas Strip. The total field of 526 entries built over six starting flights in the $500 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament surpassed the guarantee of $200,000 for a total prize pool worth $220,920.

We caught up with Blakeman just after the win for an exit interview about his path to victory and tournament experience here at the PokerAtlas Tour. Here is what he had to say about the win tonight. “Oh man, it was tough. I’ve been playing cash in between so it’s been like four or five days straight of 12-13 hour days. I don’t play many tournaments so this is different. I maybe play three or four tournaments a year. I’m mainly a cash-game player at Bellagio,” said Blakeman.

When he was asked about how he adjusted from his hours playing cash to tournaments so quickly, Blakeman responded, “It all just depends, but I usually play four to 10 hours. Yesterday I played for 13 hours because there was a big game that was a crazy game for a while at Bobby’s Room at Bellagio and I couldn’t leave. I did Bobby’s Room, came here and played the tournament, and then I went back and played Bobby’s Room cash and came back here to finish the tournament today.”

The marathon path led to victory for Blakeman, and he had this to say about switching gears from cash play to tournaments strategy-wise these last few days. “I really never study tournaments, so what I did was pay a lot of cash-game strategy. I just got lucky, I didn’t take a lot of bad beats. I’m less aggressive than the rest of them, because I’m so used to playing deepstack cash where you see a lot of flops and you have a lot more wiggle room. I had to be very careful preflop, which maybe wasn’t right, but it worked out,” said Blakeman.

When he approached the final match heads up, Blakeman stuck to his strategy until he found the right spot to open things up. “I approached it cautiously first just to see, but then when I found I was winning all the small pots I didn’t make big bluffs, but I kept stabbing at everything, and then finally a hand held up,” said Blakeman.

Blakeman also has a close tie to the PokerAtlas Tour that helped encourage him to come out and support his freind Jon Friedberg. “Jon is one of my best friends. I used to play a cash game here that they would host twice a week, and Jon and I have been close since 2011 when he brought me in as head instructor for All Vegas Poker before he bought PokerAtlas, so I came out here to support him. I’ve been with Jon for a long time, about 15 years. So I came here to support him when I found out they were doing the PokerAtlas Tour and it worked out,” said Blakeman to end the interview.