A good sized group of festive Brazilians celebrated 25-year-old South American player Alexandre Gomes’s win in Event 48, the $2 000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em competition at the World Series of Poker this week. His victory marked the first WSOP win for a South American in the 39 year history of the tournament.
The young Brazilian beat an entry field of 2 317 players registered for the event, and it took two days to reach a final table that included Dan Rome, Ryan D’Angelo, Marco Johnson (chip leader), Kirill Gerasimov, Robert Brewer, Gabe Costner, Alan Cutler, Sverre Sundbo and Gomes, who was in the middle of the pack on chip counts.
Ryan D’Angelo looked to be the likely winner as the game progressed and he eliminated most of the casualties, but he met his match in Gomes and exited in third place with $326 812 to open up a heads up contest between Gomes and Californian Marco Johnson who had started the day as chipleader and was still in contention.
He gave Gomes a good run for his money but in the end the Brazilian prevailed to take the bracelet and the $770 540 main prize, leaving Johnson with a $491 273 consolation check.