The mammoth five day, 7,192-entry World Series of Poker $1,500 buy-in ‘Monster Stack’ NLHE event has produced a winner, with 26-year-old Florida dealer Perry Shiao claiming the $1,286,942 main prize and his first WSOP winner’s bracelet.
Shiao, who has been a dealer at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, FL for the last seven years, said that he had celebrated his birthday on the opening day of the event, and the result was his best present ever.
When the final table formed Shiao was among the lower stacks but played a canny game to survive to the heads up, albeit trailing almost 3 to 1 in chips against Canadian amateur player and investor Eric Place (31).
Undeterred, he ground away at Place’s lead over the next 40 hands to first level, then overtake and extend his lead to almost 5 to 1, enabling him to clinch a convincing win.
The young dealer has his feet firmly on the ground, and told reporters that he has plans for his biggest poker pay check yet, but had to fly out soon in order to get back to Florida for his next shift.
Providing a little side entertainment, a Brazilian final tabler, CaioToledog, used his 8th place departure from the table with $150,783 to walk to the rail and propose to his fiancee Fernanda. Much to the crowd’s delight, she accepted.
Place’s runner up share of the $9,709,200 prize pool was $796,834, and the rest of the final table cashed as follows:
3 Asi Moshe $594,397
4 Kevin Kung $445,166
5 Christian Rodriguez $335,938
6 Joshua Wallace $255,351
7 Fernando Konishi $195,543
8 Caio Toledo $150,783
9 Hoyt Corkins $117,092