Poker pro Michael Gathy became only the second Belgian to win three World Series of Poker bracelets in his victory this week when he defeated Adrien Allain of France in the $5,000 buy-in Six-Max NLHE event to claim the top prize of $560,843.
The 27-year-old Belgian ace survived an entry field of 541 that included international poker experts such as T.J. Cloutier, Jason Koon, Jonathan Little, Jake Schindler, Martin Finger, Pratyush Buddiga, Ryan LaPlate and Max Greenwood to enter the heads up stage.
Starting with the chip lead, he managed to build the advantage into a lead of 8.5 million vs. 5 million by the time the final hand was played and Allain eliminated with the runner up prize of $346,632 .
Other final table rewards included:
Manuel Saavedra Nunez $229,990
Blake Eastman $155,762
Scott Margereson $107,723
Thi Nguyen $76,112
In related news, when we went to press the heads up of the $1,500 buy-in Summer Solstice event was still in progress, with Koray Aldemir and Adrian Mateos slugging it out for the main prize of $409,171 (the runner-up gets $252,805.)
1,840 players entered for the event, which was whittled down to just 17 by the start of Day 4.
Despite a stellar field that included Kathy Liebert, Jason Wheeler and Chris Moorman, it was 2013 WSOP Europe Main Event champ Adrian Mateos who led in chip counts at the start of the day, and he prevailed through to the heads up.
Aldemir is no slouch either – he has eight WSOP career cashes including a main event, and already this year he’s been rewarded in the Colossus, Millionaire Maker and a $1,000 NLH events.
Other cashes already achieved at the final table were:
Alessandro Borsa – $182,835
Ralph Wong – $133,584
Jon Turner – $98,617
Jackson White – $73,563
Ronald McGinnity – $55,455
Stephen Ladowsky – $42,252
David Tovar – $32,540