24-year-old California poker pro Taylor Paur is the latest World Series of Poker bracelet winner, having defeated a field of 2,071 players over three days…and that field included top world player Phil Ivey, who was denied his tenth WSOP bracelet when he was eliminated without making the final table in Event 18, a $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em competition.
The large entry list translated into a prize pool worth $1,863,900, ensuring that the top 216 finishers cashed.
Paur entered the final table with the chip lead and quickly extended it by busting out opponents and doubling up, but it was the heads up that created the biggest stir when Paur faced his final opponent, Smithtown, New York player Roy Weiss, who in the final stages of the game repeatedly went all-in in what appeared to be an unorthodox tactic that attracted some criticism from the purists, but certainly ignited the game and created some memorable swings in fortune.
The Weiss strategy failed in the end when Paur saw him off to claim the main prize of $340,260 and his first bracelet, sending Weiss home with the runner up prize of $211,794.
It was Paur’s biggest career win yet, and Weiss’s maiden event in a World Series.
There was less controversy but just as much excitement in event 19, a $5,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’Em contest in which Belgian poker pro Davidi Kitai outlasted a stellar field of 194 entrants to claim his second bracelet and the $224,560 winner’s spoils. The field included pros from several countries, four of whom were WSOP bracelet holders.
Notable names included Dario Minieri, Bertrand Grospellier and Eugene Katchalov who all made the final table.
The match culminated in Kitai facing Cary Katz in the heads up, with Kitai holding a 2 to 1 advantage which Katz was unable to completely overcome, and he was sent to the cashier to collect the runner up prize of $138,794.
Other final table payouts looked like this:
3 Vincent Bartello $103,628
4 Dimitar Danchev $77,893
5 Eugene Katchalov $58,912
6 Kristina Holst $44,844
7 Bertrand Grospellier $34,341
8 Dario Minieri $26,468
9 Chris Johnson $20,520