By RP, June 7, 2015
Florida players Barry Hutter and Ben Zamani made the heads up of World Series of Poker event 14 a state affair this weekend when they battled for supremacy in the $1,500 buy-in NLHE Shootout competition in Las Vegas.
Among the starters in this competition were names like Dominik Nitschke, Rep Porter, Justin Bonomo, Mark Radoja, Dave Tuthill and Matt Gianetti.
The duo from Florida were among the survivors of a field of 1,000 entrants that generated a prize pool of $1.35 million for the tournament and distilled to an 11-hour final table in which two women players, Kitty Kuo and Elizabeth Montizanti, finished high in the pay-outs.
The departure of former WSOP main event champ Dennis Phillips in third for $113,265 set the scene for the fifty hand heads up, which Zamani started with a 2 to 1 chip advantage, but Hutter finished after taking the lead and eliminating his hard-driving opposition at second for $174,771.
Twenty-nine-year-old Hutter scored his first WSOP bracelet and the main prize of $283,546 – his third cash in the current World Series. Other final table cashes included:
Kitty Kuo $82,890
Elizabeth Montizanti $61,560
Orson Young $46,332
Anton Smirnov $35,302
Daniel Strelitz $27216
Grayson Ramage $21,208.