After a few events in a row where the prize pool wasn’t exactly the highest, the stakes got raised a little in Event #13 where the total reached $3,213,100.
With 1,397 players paying the $2,500 buy-in, this No Limit Hold-em contest easily beat out last year’s thirteenth event where 1,013 people bought in.
The three day affair kicked off on Saturday and out of the 1,397 players, only 137 would make it to the second day. Notable players who took to the felt this day included Jerry Yang, Chris Ferguson, Jamie Gold, Phil Hellmuth, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Carlos Mortensen, and Clonie Gowen.
Ferguson was the only one out of the group to make it to the second day along with players like John Phan, and Liz Lieu. At the end of the day, both Theo Tran and Eli Elezra were on top.
In a crazy surprise though, Elezra didn’t even finish in the top 99 who cashed as he busted early to start day 2. Others who wouldn’t make it real far included Ferguson, Phan, and Lee Watkinson. Tran went out in 25th place.
Those who survived day 2 and made it to the final table include:
Seat/Player/Chips
Seat 1: Brent Hanks 755,000
Seat 2: Steve Merrifield 1,109,000
Seat 3: Shawn Buchanan 1,133,000
Seat 4: Duncan Bell 1,966,000
Seat 5: Jason Sanders 1,099,000
Seat 6: Nathan Doudney 113,000
Seat 7: Brent Ditzik 384,000
Seat 8: Nicolas Levi 233,000
Seat 9: Ariel Soffer 191,000
In just the second hand, Nicolas Levi set the tone for what was to be a fast final table after he was eliminated. Just after that, Duncan Bell put Brent Ditzik and Ariel Soffer out of the tournament.
Then, right away, Bell found himself eliminating another player in Jason Sanders when he hit a set of 2’s. Brent Hanks bowed out shortly after this when Steve Merrifield’s straight did him in.
Not yet finished, Merrifield also dispatched Shawn Buchanan when Buchanan got no help from the board to beat Merrifield’s pocket 9’s. Merrifield’s run continued when he took out Nathan Doudney too.
This left him and Duncan Bell heads-up where Duncan got off to a rough start and lost the lead to Merrifield. In fact, Merrifield got up by as much as 5-1 over Bell.
But Bell battled back and eventually took the lead. On the final hand, Bell had the good fortune of getting pocket A’s while Merrifield thought his pocket 10’s could hang. Nothing came from the board and Merrifield was done when they flipped over.
Bell was the champ in Event #13 and also the earner of $666,777. Here are some other results:
Place/Player/Money
1.Duncan Bell $666,777
2.Steven Merrifield $428,948
3.Nathan Doudney $260,261
4.Shawn Buchanan $218,491
5.Brent Hanks $178,327
6.Jason Sanders $139,769
7.Ariel Soffer $107,638
8.Brent Ditzik $83,540
9.Nicolas Levi $59,442
10.Adam Katz $38,236
11.Napoleon Ta $38,236
12.Yuri Shapiro $38,236
13.Jason Mercier $30,203
14.Joel Casper $30,203
15.John Roveto $30,203
16.Michael Kamran $22,170
17.Jaques Zaicik $22,170
18.Frank Vukasin $22,170
19.Aaron Been $17,351
20.William Ragatz $17,351
21.Peter DeBest $17,351
22.Jason Manger $17,351
23.Pascal Baumgartner $17,351
24.Patri Friedman $17,351
25.Theo Tran $17,351