Event 57 at the World Series of Poker – a $5,000 NLHE competition – has been won by Manchester, UK player Matt Perrins (25), the third Brit player this series to claim WSOP gold.
It was Perrins’ second WSOP winner’s bracelet, and his $792,275 prize was his biggest career win yet.
784 players registered for the event, playing down to a final table that comprised Perrins and Arthur Pro, Seth Berger, Antonio Buonanno, Matt Berkey, Thomas Muehloecker, Randal Flowers, Joseph Serockand Kent Roed.
Perrins came into final table action with a strong chip count and managed to maintain dominance right through the six-hour confrontation, eliminating six of his rivals.
In the end, supported by a rail-full of beery Brit poker professionals, he faced Arthur Pro, a US player from Texas, with an almost 10 to 1 chip lead over the American.
Although Pro fought bravely on it was too great a disadvantage to master, and he soon exited with a runner up prize of $489,451 – his biggest career cash yet.
In the $2,500 buy-in triple draw tournament scheduled as event 59, former Israeli army officer turned poker pro Eli Elezra (52) took the honours, his second WSOP bracelet and the $173,236 first-place prize in an exciting final heads up with Daniel Negreanu.
The speciality event attracted a registration list of 282 players, generating a prize pool of $641,550.
The field distilled to a final table of Elezra and Negreanu, along with Brian Brubaker, David Chiu, David Baker and Scott Seiver – five of the six players being WSOP bracelet holders. At that point Elexra was the low-stack man on the table.
Just after the dinner break Negreanu eliminated Brubaker in third for $70,743, setting the scene for a Negreanu vs. Elezra heads up, with Negreanu holding a chip lead of almost half a million.
Undeterred, Elezra played a skilled and disciplined game to break even with Negreau over the next ten hands, and then surged ahead over the five hands following that to take a 4 to 1 lead, leaving Negeanu to play catch-up.
Negreanu was unable to complete the task, and fifteen hands later it was all over and Negreanu – denied his sixth WSOP bracelet – headed off to collect his second placing prize of $107,055.