The first stop of the second season of the Hollywood Poker Open (HPO), which was hosted at Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg, has come to an end. The HPO will stop at several places till the end of May, and each stop will comprise a poker festival, which will last for 10 days. The most important event is going to be the $500k Guaranteed HPO Championship Tournament, which will be held at M Resort in Las Vegas in June 2014.

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PokerNews will cover each main event live, and the first such main event will be held at Hollywood Casino Tunica this weekend.

The HPO’s $1,800 buy-in main events will be held at Hollywood Casino Tunica from February 15 – 16, Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course from March 1 – 2, Hollywood Casino St. Louis from March 15 – 16, Hollywood Casino at Charlestown Town Races, and Hollywood Casino Columbus in May.

Chris Moneymaker, the legendary poker player who captured the world’s attention by winning the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in 2003, will play an important role in the second season of the HPO. Moneymaker has been recruited as the HPO brand ambassador and therefore will take part in several local and regional HPO qualifiers. He will also take part in HPO main events, which will be held at Hollywood Casino properties in Lawrenceburg, Charlestown, St. Louis, and Ohio as well as in the mega HPO championship tournament, which will be held in June at M Resort, Las Vegas.

Besides running regional events, HPO’s casino properties will hold several promos to help players win free seats to the championship tournament. Players can qualify by taking part in freerolls and Sunday tournaments from now till the end of May.

The inaugural edition of the HPO championship tournament was held at the M Resort in June 2013. As many as 200 players qualified for this event, and Ana Marquez, the Spanish poker pro, beat a large player field of 631 to become the HPO champion. Marquez, who was awarded a huge first-place prize of $320,189, said, “I can’t believe I won, everything was super perfect.” Other players who won cash in the event were Griffin Benger, Max Greenwood, Mickey Petersen, and Ryan D’Angelo.

Players can watch each HPO regional main event live at PokerNews, and those interested in knowing more about the second season of the HPO can visit the official HPO website at www.hollywoodpokeropen.com.