Taylor Paur has picked up his second major title after defeating Isaac Baron, in heads-up action, to win the $1.2m first prize in the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event. Anthony Zinno maintains protocol by winning the $25k High Roller.
Taylor Paur is the latest member of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Champions Club, after winning the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event in San Jose, California.
How did Paur feel about his win?
Wow this really meant the fucking world
— Taylor Paur (@taypaur) March 14, 2015
It was a great victory for poker. Paur is a well-respected member of the community, and ranks amongst his peers, as one of the finest proponents of his art, both online and live.
Boy, did he do it the hard way.
This event is a tough son of a bitch. The $7,500 buy-in keeps most fish out of the water, and the presence of 80 of the world’s greatest card sharps, characters and charmers, in the form of Shooting Stars, all adds up to a quality field; never better demonstrated than the formation of the final table. A selection of six stars that WPT Live Reporter Ryan Lucchesi said was the ‘toughest final table of the season.’
Two of the final six players were Shooting Stars. Season VIII WPT Player of the Year, Faraz Jaka’s, tournament ended in a fifth place finish. Pocket fours picked a fight with Jacob Bazeley’s pocket tens. They lost. The man who recently appeared on CNN Money, as the ‘homeless millionaire poker player,’ earned $216,320. That should buy him a decent sleeping bag.
The Canadian, Sorel Mizzi, was the other man with a bounty on his head. Incredibly, with over $10m in live tournament earnings, this was Mizzi’s first WPT final table. His bounty, and t-shirt, belongs to the champion – ace-jack losing out to pocket fives. Paur has a good heart. I assume he gave the t-shirt to Jaka.
Jacob Bazeley followed Mizzi out of the door; Paur once against the vanquisher. Bazeley moved all-in, holding [Kc] [7c], Paur called with [As] [Ts], and two more aces jumped out of the pack to end the tournament of a young man who is in the prime of his career. He won the WSOPC Main Event in Cherokee at the end of 2014, and made the final table of the Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) Main Event in Black Hawk last month. Last season he finished fourth at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown. He’s getting closer.
Those two exits saw Paur enter heads-up with a 2:1 chip advantage against the man who held the chip lead when the final table began: Isaac Baron. Fans hoping for a fight would be disappointed. Nine hands. Bish, bash, bosh. Baron emptying the clip with top pair, only for Paur to take each hit before landing a heart flush on the river.
Final Table Results
1: Taylor Paur – $1,214,200
2: Isaac Baron – $704,200
3: Jake Bazeley – $461,470
4: Sorel Mizzi – $310,060
5: Faraz Jaka – $216,320
6: Ravee Mathi – $168,260
Anthony Zinno Does it Again (Sort of)
Anthony Zinno came to San Jose hoping to be the only player to win three back-to-back Main Event titles. Unfortunately, you are more likely to see Sheldon Adelson entering WCOOP.
The odds may have been stacked against him, and he may have succumbed to them, but he did come away from his third successive WPT festival as a big winner.
Zinno joined 19 other entrants in the $25,000 High Roller, and walked away with the top prize of $197,758 after an ICM chop with Paul Volpe. Only one more player received anything from the $490,000 prize pool. That was Pratyush Buddiga. A young man I said would continue to win a heap of cash in 2015. Buddiga picked up $98,000 for his third place finish. WPT Champions Club member, Jared Jaffee, picked up the wooden spoon.
It’s all go though.
The WPT continues its action, both sides of the large expanse of blue, with concurrent tournaments currently underway in Vienna and Rolling Thunder.
