WSOP 2015: Serial & Virgin Bracelet Winners Emerge in 9 WSOP Events; Aditya Agarwal Plays Event 11 Even As More Indian Challengers Join the Action

WSOP 2015
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  • PG News June 4, 2015
  • 5 Minutes Read

2015 WSOP marches on and now nine days later, it has seen as many bracelets won by pros with earlier bracelets, as well as first-timers. We continue our series of reports on WSOP with news of the latest events and champions, the past few days.

The Colossus is finally over and Cord Garcia won the mammoth event for $638,880. Events 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 all saw winners emerge.

A cheating controversy broke out about Event 10, with several top pros accusing Czech player Valeriu Coca of manipulating the deck. WSOP is currently investigating the matter.

Events 11 and 12 are currently underway. Aditya Agarwal was among those playing Event 12, however, he was eliminated on the opening day.

Adda52 Team Spades Pro`s Kunal Patni and Aditya Sushant are now in Vegas and ready to battle it out with the best!

Read on to catch all the details of the latest WSOP events below…

 

Event 5 – $565 Colossus $5 Million GTD

Amidst the mad rush of 22,374 entries for a prize pool of $11,187,000 and player ire over the rake and percentage of top place prize, the Colossus finally played down to a winner – Cord Garcia.

The 25-year old epitomized the poker dream of all aspirants, when he took down the mega event, claiming his first WSOP bracelet, first WSOP cash for $638,880, etching his name into the history books.

After the win, the Houston native exclaimed, “Definitely. It feels like it is my breakthrough, but at the same time, I feel like I am capable of doing bigger things.”

However, currently nothing could get bigger than the Colossus, with its carnival atmosphere and record-breaking crowds.The event created such a buzz that Nolan Dalla, longtime poker writer and unofficial WSOP historian, compared the event to moments such as, Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games, Barry Bonds overtaking Hank Aaron for career home runs, and Joe DiMaggio creating a new record for consecutive hits in games.

Cord Garcia with friends and family after his bracelet win
Cord Garcia with friends and family after his bracelet win

Interesting Colossus Figures

Total Entries: 22,374 entries

Unique Entries: 14,284

Countries: 98

WSOP Newbies 5664 (Never played WSOP before)

Player Age Span: 75 years.

Oldest Player: Norman Spivock (96 years, 2 months)

Youngest Players: David Barclay and Noah Goldman, both of whom were 21 years and 1 day old

Average Age of Participants: 41.95 years

Event Duration: 7 Days (May 28 to June 3)

Physical Poker Chips: 362,425

Dealers: 982

Card Decks: 4480

 

Final Moments

The Colossus dramatic finale began the moment, when with just the last four players remaining, Garcia won a three-way all in hand. He then went on to eliminate Paul Lentz in 4th place and a short-stacked 4 WSOP Circuit Ring winner Ray Henson followed at 3rd place.

Heads up play began between Garcia and Brad McFarland and lasted all of 42 minutes.

Garcia opened from the button to 3,000,000 and the flop came . Garcia continued for 4,100,000. McFarland called. The turn brought and McFarland checked again. Garcia thought a bit before laying out a bet of 8,400,000. This caused McFarland to pause and ultimately call. The river completed the board with a . McFarland checked a third time. Garcia again raised 17,500,000. McFarland went “all-in” and Garcia snap called, tabling . A visibly shocked McFarland displayed and Garcia was the champion of the historic Colossus event. McFarland retired at 2nd place with $386,253.

 

Event 6: $1,000 Hyper Hold’em

1,436 entries created a prize pool of $1,292,400 in Event 6, the first “Hyper” event introduced this WSOP.

Aditya Agarwal participated the event but was eliminated.

26-year old, Rochester player John Reading was the ultimate winner, collecting $252,068 in prize money and his second WSOP jewelry. Reading already has 3 WSOP cashes and a gold ring from a WSOP Circuit win.

John Reading
John Reading

An ecstatic Reading stated after the win, “This is the biggest stage in the world for anyone who plays for a living. We all play to get here to compete for a gold bracelet.”

Reading
Macdonnell:

Reading had the superior hand and when the flop came down Macdonnell picked up a straight draw. The turn brought with no effect, but the river was another story with its .

John Reading was champion of the first Hyper event and Marc Macdonnell finished as the runner-up, taking home $155,876 for his efforts.

 

Event 7: $10,000 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball Championsip

37-year old Tuan Le joined the prestigious ranks of back-to-back WSOP bracelet winners, when he took down Event 7 for $322,756. The professional California player has 10 WSOP cashes and this will be his second bracelet. Last year, Le won the same event for $355,324, after beating 120 players.

Tuan Le
Tuan Le

This year’s victory is like ten times as big as last year,” Le said afterward. “When you defend a title, that’s a totally different ball game. It’s a statement. Anyone can get a rush one time and win, but to do it again, makes a statement. For me, last year was about the money. This year was about the bracelet.”

Event 7 had 109 players and a prize pool of$1,024,600. Maximilian Casal was runner up, collecting $199,438 for his second-place finish.

 

Event 8: $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em

24-year old Paul Michaelis won Event 8, claiming the top prize of $189,818 and a WSOP gold bracelet for his first place finish. The Management student from Austria dominated all of the final table, along with runner up Tom Marchese.

Paul Michaelis
Paul Michaelis

After the game, Michaelis declared, “I was running insane basically. I had a straight flush against a nut flush, I had a couple sets. My bluffs worked out. Everything worked perfectly actually.”

The final hand saw the two last players holding:

Michaelis:
Marchese

The flop revealed . At the turn of Michaelis’s rail began to cheer. The river brought forth and a champion was declared in Michaelis, with Marchese runner up for $117,199.

 

Event 9 – $1,500 Razz

44-year old Max Pescatori was the champion in Event 9 for $155,947, beating a player field of 462 players vying for a prize pool of $623,700.

Max Pescatori
Max Pescatori

This is Milan-based Pescatori’s 3rd bracelet, besides 46 earlier WSOP cashes. After a rough past few years, Pecatori was elated to bag the win and said,“It’s been a while. This is very sweet, that’s for sure. I’ve done good here, but nothing matches winning. I knew this game was strong for me, so I felt that this gave me a good chance to get my third in this one.”

Ryan Miller was 2nd place finisher and collected $96,349.

 

Event 10: $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship

143 players signed up for Event 10, leading to a prize pool of $1,344,200. Several notables were playing the event, which was wracked by a cheating controversy.

The cheater in question is purported to be Valeriu Coca, who ultimately finished 5th for $54,000.

Valeriu Coca
Valeriu Coca

Coca was found to be acting strangely by several pros, who he went on to eliminate with an ease that was unbelievable. It was later found that this unknown player was banned in Czechoslovakian casinos for marking cards and cheating.

Connor Drinan was among the first to take to the 2+2 forum and voice his ire about Coca. He wrote:

“Hey 2+2, it’s Connor. We (the players that were beaten by this Valeriu Coca guy in the $10k HU) were trying to keep things quiet until we gave the WSOP adequate time to investigate the situation and come up with a solution, but since there are a lot of rumors circulating and a lot of people know bits and pieces already, I might as well clear things up.

Pratyush Buddiga was the first to lose to him. He is my good friend but seemed pretty tilted so I didn’t ask details until I found out he was my next opponent. I asked for reads and whatnot and he basically told me he was really slow and passive in the beginning and then picked up the pace as the match went on as far as speed of play and aggression. He thought he was stalling in the beginning to give himself a better shot to win at a higher blind level. He said he would stall by rechecking his cards at a bunch of different angles when it was clear he made up his mind to fold already.

He did the same thing in my match. For the first 10 hands or so, he folded to most of my button opens and either limped or folded the button (doing the same obnoxious card checking tactics). I was thinking “man this guy is going to be a breeze.” From that point on I won very few pots the rest of the match. Every time I had a good starting hand he folded. If I had a bad one he raised or re-raised. If I whiffed a flop he attacked my c-bets. If I whiffed and went for a delayed cbet, he blasted turn into me every time. If I hit and bet, he folded. Hit and checked, he checked ect ect ect.

It was probably the most frustrating match of my life and I’ve played a ton of HU. He grinded me down to 80k at bb4k from 240k starting. At this point I was playing super passive as his aggression was out of control. I made my first button raise in a while which was a shove with 33 and he snapped me with k5o for 20bb. I held and won my only significant pot of the match but he went back to work grinding me down to 60k and then won a flip to end the match.

I remember him folding 4 times total preflop once blinds got big. 1) He walked me when I had AA. 2) he folded to my min when I had AJs. 3) I capped my cards and waited for him to look at his cards first for the first time in the match as I was starting to get really skeptical. He acted surprised and flustered and walked me before I uncovered my hand. 4) After checking my hole cards (J9o i think) I looked behind me to see if there was a chance he had a friend on the rail who could see my cards but there was no way. He seemed very weirded out that I did that and again walked me.

I stormed out of the rio as tilted as I’ve ever been after busting a tournament and immediately messaged prat saying I felt like something major was off with the match. It didn’t make sense that a guy grinding 300 euro mtts in eastern europe who has never played WSOP before would come here for the $10k HU and be such a beast. I ranted to Prat all the things that were weird, both mannerisms and plays he made vs me. Prat said he felt the exact same about his match but didn’t say anything at first because he figured he was just being a sore loser and got owned. I then messaged the other 2 players he beat, Matt Marafioti and Aaron Mermelstein and they both had similar “yeah i felt totally owned, couldn’t win a pot, thing he was doing with his cards was really weird, ect” type responses.

I called my other good friend Byron Kaverman and warned him about everything as they were scheduled to play in the round of 16 the next morning. We figured we should also tell Jack Effel so they could be on the lookout. Byron said he knew Jack well so he would talk to him. I went to bed questioning myself and wondering if I was just being a sore loser.

I then woke up this morning to a message on facebook from a czech friend of mine that read “Hey man just woke up and found out u were in HU with a guy who made a lot of money in cash games in Prague. He has ban in czech poker casinos for cheating. Guy was marking cards. We can talk in person little bit later when Im on sngs in Rio and u can forward it to floors players etc so they can do smtng about it I guess”

I instantly passed this along to Byron and he said that Jack was on it and they were monitoring him via cameras and also switching up the decks frequently. My friend also sent me this article which you have to translate to english with your broswer: http://www.pokerzive.cz/zpravodajstv…azskych-kasin/

I spoke with Byron after his match and he said he was 100% sure the guy was trying to cheat and was watching the cards very closely as the dealer dealt off the deck but that he did a pretty good job covering his cards and the decks were being switched up so it was hard for Coca to work his magic. Unfortunately he couldn’t fade an 80/20 and the guy advanced. His next opponent, Keith Lehr, was also warned about Coca. At this point, Coca probably knew that he had been exposed based on the attention his matches were receiving from the floor, the way Byron and Keith were protecting their hands so well, ect ect. He finally lost to Keith in 5th place.

Our speculation is that he was using some sort of invisible ink in combination with special sunglasses. We haven’t heard much from WSOP since the match, but what little I have heard I would rather keep to myself for now and allow WSOP time to finish the investigation and make their own statement.”

Pratyush Buddiga, Matt Marafioti, Aaron Mermelstein and Byron Kaverman were among the few pros, Coca beat easily in the event. Currently, WSOP is investigating the case and are keeping a close watch on Coca.

 

Final Moments

The heads up finale saw Keith Lehr and Paul Volpe fighting for their 2nd bracelets.

Finally, Lehr, who had won his first bracelet 12 years ago, won the event and collected the top prize of $334,430. Volpe made $206,620 for his 2nd place finish.

Keith Lehr
Keith Lehr

In the final hand Volpe raised to 80,000 on the button and Lehr called. The flop came and Lehr lead out for 110,000, while Volpe raised to 280,000. Lehr immediately four-bet to 510,000 and Volpe paused before calling. The turn card opened and Lehr moved all in. Volpe thought a moment and called. Lehr had , giving him top pair but was trailing Volpe’s . All Lehr needed was a queen or an eight and the river with did not disappoint, crowning Lehr the champion of the event.

 

Event 11: $1,500 Limit Hold’em

Event 11 has a prize pool of $891,000, created by 660 entries.

Day 2 ended with just 28 survivors and bracelet winner Kevin Song leading them with 450,000. All 28 are assured of a minimum payday of $4,989, with the eventual winner collecting $196,055.

 

Event #12: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed

1651 entries led to a prize pool of $2,228,500 in Event 12. Aditya Agarwal played Event 11, but was eliminated.

2013 bracelet winner, Bryan Campanello led the 206 survivors and among those who will play Day 2, are Indian origin player Ronit Chamani, Zo Karim, Antonio Esfandiari, Scott Seiver, Olivier Busquet, and David Benyamine.

Keep watching this space for all the latest updates from WSOP 2015.

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