US poker pro Harrison Gimbel (25) is just one step away from joining the elite Triple Crown winners club after clinching his first World Poker Tour main event title this week in the $3,500 buy-in WPT Rolling Thunder main event, which he has added to a Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure win six years ago….all he needs now is a World Series of Poker win to qualify as a Triple Crowner.
The WPT Rolling Thunder main event attracted a talented and diverse field of 409 entrants, creating a prize pool of $1,308,800, with $275,112 and a free seat in the WPT Tournament of Champions reserved for the winner.
Gimbel had little trouble surviving both the field and the final table, but his main challenge evolved in the heads up with the formidable two-time WPT champion Mohsin Charania, and the fight lasted all of 114 fiercely contested hands after the two players started with essentially even chip counts.
Ultimately, it turned out to be a hard fought victory for Gimbel, lining him up for that Triple Crown achievement, boosting his career live tourney earnings to over $3 million and leaving Charania with a well-earned runner up prize of $192,132.
Other final table cashes included:
Russell Garrett – $123,682
Markus Gonsalves – $91,616
Hafiz Khan – $68,712
Derek Wolters – $54,970
In related news, Romanian poker pro Vlad Darie took down the World Poker Tour Vienna main event, besting 233 other entrants to claim the Euro 170,000 first prize after beating Zoltan Gal in the heads up.
Darie also gets a free ride in the WPT Tournament of Champions later this year.
The talented final table included the following payers and their take-homes:
Zoltan Gal – Euro 109,340
Matt Davenport – Euro 70,800
Dietrich Fast – Euro 52,450
Dominik Bosnjak – Euro 39,360
Georgios Zisimopoulos – Euro 31,500