Big Stax 300: Recap

Parx Big Stax 300: $300 + 30 NL Hold'em (Re-Entry)

It surely didn't mirror the heads up battle from February's Big Stax 300 (which lasted until 9:30am), but that didn't bother eventual winner Mike Wert II (Coal Township, PA).  Wert went into heads up play with a four-to-one lead against Ross Chapman (Florham Park, NJ), and watched as Ross shrunk that deficit to almost half that.  It would be Wert's pure run in the late stages, and excellent final table play though that would overcome in end.  The win came in front of a handful of friends, who watched as he collected $63,000 for the win.  Chapman, who missed the first 70 minutes of the day, walks away with $35,605.

The buzz coming into this event was evident as over 400 entries made it for Day 1A.  We saw all of the faces we love, including defending champ Jason Rivkin (Eatowntown, NJ) in the field.  43 players ended the night, with Pofuk Ying (Highland Park, NJ) leading the way (525,000).  We saw 242 entires on Day 1B, and after the 33 remaining players bagged at the end of the night, it was Kevin Grabel's (South Hampton, PA) 638,000 that would top.  Day 1C would be the last chance to dance, so it was no surprise that 419 entries made their way in and out, and Kevin Truong (Freehold, NJ) would bag 505,000 (tops of the 63 that remained that night).

There were a total of 139 coming back for Day 2, and it would be a day without a shortage of action.  It would only be a few hours in before we reached the money bubble, but we saw players like Kevin Benitez (Hillburn, NY) and Akib Ali (North Brunswick, NJ) reach 1,000,000 chips and above.  The bubble would only last a few hands, and once it broke we saw Asher Conniff, Joel Frank, Gordon Eng, Kyle Bowker, and Jack Duong collected money in the first wave of cashes.  One time leaders Pofuk Ying finished 55th ($959) Kevin Grabel 47th ($1,150), and notables such as Jonas Wexler (44th-$1,342) and Marvin Siegal (28th-$1,534) made deep runs as well.

After the first redraw at 27, things began to take form, and we saw the bigger stacks of Joe Primavera, Kevin Truong, Kevin Benitez, and Mike Wert.  Ross Chapman turned a set of jacks, and but a crippling beat on Divakaran Marella (who finished 22nd).  It was bittersweet for Alex Rocha who knocked out one of his best friends Norman Michalek in 21st.  Once the field was down to 18 though Rocha would be seated to Wert's immediate left, and would fall victim to some of his pure run (going home in 13th for $2,821.  WPT Parx Poker Open Classic television final table member Chris VanDeursen would be the final table bubble boy (11th-$3,122), and everyone would take off for Mother's Day.

Players arrived at 1:00pm, all except Ross Chapman who was rumored to possibly not be showing up at all (job conflict).  Wert's pure run continued to the final table as he grabbed a mountain after flopping a gutshot straight flush draw against the top set of Jospeh Primavera (Brooklyn, NY)...and getting there.  Antonio Walker (8th Place-$4,766) lost half his stack to blinds and antes, and his A K fell to the pocket fours of Kevin Huong.  Short stack ninja Nicholas Partenope (Colonia, NJ) never held more than 30 big blinds at the final table, but managed a 5th Place finish for $10,955.  Kevin Benitez would fall victim to a miracle river versus Jeff Wicker (Bristol, PA), while Truong to Wert's final table run good (AK<A8).  We were heads up between the player who was a possible final table no show, and the player who had all the chips (Wert had 22,000,000 of the 28,000,000 to begin heads up play).  Chapman made a great effort to close the gap, but a great read and all-in river call would win Wert the trophy.

Wert is no stranger to the nosebleed no-limit games on the east coast, or online (pre-Black Friday).  He had basically no tournament earnings coming into today, but said he loved his chances in tournament play.  He wouldn't commit to whether he'd be joining us for the Big Stax 1500, but we're sure we'll see a player of that quality again in the near future.