Fifty-year-old Matthew Davis, a college statistics teacher from California, has taken down the World Series of Poker $1,000 buy-in Seniors event, besting a record entry field of 5,919 which generated a prize pool of $5,326,200.
The Chabot College lecturer claimed his first World Series of Poker winner’s bracelet and the main prize of $662,983 for his victory.
Davis came alight around the five-handed stage of the final table to make it into the heads up against 2012 Seniors Event champ Bill Stabler, with the chip stacks more or less even. The duo were to battle on for the next 100 hands and were evenly matched.
Stabler played a skilful game and by the dinner break was ahead 4 to 3 in chip stacks, but following dinner Davis came out firing on all cylinders, taking a 3 to 1 lead and holding it for the remaining 15 minutes it took to eliminate Stabler at second for $409,456
Other final table cashes included:
Scott Hamilton-Hill
New Zealand
$303,859
Gary Friedlander
United States
$227,111
Bill Bennett
United States
$170,973
Rachel Delatorre
United States
$129,648
Frank Berry
United States
$99,032
Joseph Schulman
United States
$76,204