It is wonderful casino news that the World Series of Poker (WSOP) has taken its circuit event to Ohio. The series squeezed 12 tournaments into the Baroque surroundings of the Horseshoe Cincinnati, the attendances were sturdy and a few dreams came true for the recreational poker players taking their shot at a bigger payday.
The Main Event
Every poker series peaks with its main event and Cincinnati was no different. $1,500 went into the prize pool and $175 went to the house that always wins. 740 players fancied their chances in this one, and that created a total prize pool of $1.1m, with $221,994 reserved for the man, or woman, who would outlast them all.
Amateurs and Professionals Combine in the Final
As you would expect with a WSOPC event, the final table was a fantastic mix of both amateur and professional poker players. There was an engineer, a window assembler, a day trader, a radiology technician, an entrepreneur and four professional poker players when the final table was set.
The favorite to take the hardware, going into the final table, was the professional poker player Josh Williams. Not only did Williams come into the event with the chip lead, but also he was a previous WSOPC main event winner after taking the first prize in an event at the Horseshoe Casino in Chicago back in Season 9.
Multiple WSOPC gold ring winner Kevin McColgan and WSOP gold bracelet holder Aaron Steury also made the final table.
Final Table Chip Counts (at start of play)
Seat 1: Rory Monahan – 278,000
Seat 2: Brad Albrinck – 2,126,000
Seat 3: Kevin McColgan – 2,300,000
Seat 4: Viet Vo – 500,000
Seat 5: Josh Williams – 2,880,000
Seat 6: Greg Kolo – 2,500,000
Seat 7: Ray Attiyah – 1,263,000
Seat 8: David Kash – 1,500,000
Seat 9: Aaron Steury – 1,250,000
The Final Confrontation
Despite a final table littered with champions and full time professionals, the underdogs would make it through to the heads-up encounter; as the engineer squared off against the window assembler for the title.
Brad Albrinck was chasing his second live tournament career win to date, while David Kash was cashing in his first-ever live tournament event.
The heads-up action only lasted a few hands before the dealer gave them both something to shout about. It was ace-king for Albrinck and ace-ten for Kash. It was good enough for an all-in and call and Albrinck faded the three-outer to take the gold ring, $221,994 in cash and a seat at the WSOP National Championships to be held in Atlantic City in May.
“It’s several years of my salary,” said Albrinck after his win. “You know that when you go play these things you are going to have the downswings so it’s nice to have the upswing.”
Final Table Standings
1st – Brad Albrinck – $221,994
2nd – David Kash – $136,863
3rd – Greg Kolo – $100,899
4th – Viet Vo – $75,203
5th – Josh Williams – $56,799
6th – Aaron Steury – $43,457
7th – Ray Attiyah – $33,666
8th – Rory Monahan – $26,4070
9th – Kevin McColgan – $20,968
Samuel Panzica takes the Casino Championship
Samuel Panzica and Pavlin Karakikov pushed each other all the way for the right to take the Casino Championship at Cincinnati. Eventually, a fantastic run in the main event that saw Panzica finish in 30th place was good enough to edge out the Bulgarian by just 7.5 points.
It is the second consecutive year that Panzica has qualified for the National Championsips. Last year he finished a very respectable 17th place for $17,374.
The next WSOPC event will take place at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana Oct 3rd −14th.
