New York professional poker player Elio Fox is having a standout year; in July he took down the Bellagio VII tournament for $669,692 and Thursday he defeated Chris Moorman heads up to win the World Series of Poker Europe main event, earning himself Euro 1.4 million and boosting his career earnings to almost $3 million.
The Euro 10,400 buy-in main event pulled in 593 players, among them some of the top exponents in the international professional game, and after five tough days the following survivors emerged to claim seats at the final table after Moorman eliminated Patrik Antonius in the ninth spot:
Elio Fox (chip leader on 3,990,000); Jake Cody 2,685,000; Dermot Blain 2,405,000; Chris Moorman 2,230,000; Brian Roberts 2,000,000; Max Silver 1,825,000; Moritz Kranich 1,660,000; and Shawn Buchanan 1,015,000.
With the lion’s share of the Euro 5,692,800 prize pool, and a first prize of Euro 1.4 million a massive motivator, the table got down to business and British player Max Silver was the first casualty in a field pretty much dominated by Fox and Moorman, who ultimately faced each other in the heads up.
Fox held almost double the chips of his Brit adversary, and early in the heads up managed to carve out another big chunk of Moorman?s stack, making it difficult for the UK player to fight his way back into real contention.
Moorman had to be content with a not insubstantial runner up pay day of Euro 800 000, leaving the victor to claim the respect, his first WSOP bracelet and Euro 1.4 million in cash.
This year, the WSOP Europe increased the number of events by two to host seven gold-bracelet events at the new venue in Cannes, France. All of the events were well patronised, breaking previous records, with the main event a case in point; the previous record of 362 players was easily beaten by this year’s 593 competitors.
Comparing the numbers from 2010 to 2011, there was an increase of 88.2 percent in total players this year; even taking into account the two additional events held this year, the numbers soared by 34.5 percent.