RbPkr Field Reports
Nick Marchington Wins NAPT Las Vegas Main Event
The North American Poker Tour (NAPT) continued its successful revival in November 2024, hosting a massive festival at Resorts World Las Vegas. The PokerStars-sponsored tour brought out a diverse mix of recreational players, online qualifiers (who won "Gold Passes"), and seasoned touring professionals.
Marchington's Las Vegas Triumph
The crown jewel of the festival was the $5,300 NAPT Main Event, which drew a highly competitive field eager to capture a major stateside title. UK poker professional Nick Marchington, best known for his deep run to the final table of the 2019 WSOP Main Event, emerged victorious.
Marchington defeated American pro Joel Micka in heads-up play to secure the spectacular $765,200 first-place prize. As reported by Poker.org, Marchington's victory was a masterclass in aggressive deep-stack play, constantly putting his opponents in difficult positions on later streets.
The State of North American Poker
The successful return of the NAPT to Las Vegas sparked a lot of positive sentiment on r/poker, with players praising the tour's structure, the venue at Resorts World, and the general health of live tournament poker in the United States. Many players noted that having a strong mid-major tour running late in the year provides a great alternative for those who don't want to travel internationally for the EPT.
Emulating the NAPT at Home
If your home game group usually just plays cash games, hosting a multi-table (or even single-table) tournament can be a fantastic change of pace.
To run a good home tournament, you need a smooth blind structure that finishes in a reasonable amount of time (usually 3-4 hours). The biggest hurdle home games face is that physical dealing is slow; players simply don't get enough hands in before the blinds become too high, turning the game into a pure shove-fest.
By using RbPkr to handle the dealing digitally, you dramatically increase the number of hands dealt per hour. This allows the tournament to play out more naturally, rewarding skill and deep-stack maneuvering rather than just raw pre-flop luck.