A few days after Cory Waaland was denied the chance to win his seventh WSOP Circuit gold ring and finished 2nd in the 2015/16 WSOP Circuit Bally’s Event #4: $365 No-Limit Hold’em, the player from Wilmington, North Carolina topped the field of Event #13 on the Bally’s schedule to capture the coveted gold piece and a first-place prize of $14,096.
Now, Waaland is tied with fellow poker pros Ari Engel, Chris Reslock, and Val Vornicu for second place in the all-time WSOP Circuit gold rings list with Alexandru Masek being the only standing before them with a total of nine pieces he has won over the span of his poker career.
Event #13 kicked off on March 6 and it took two full days of play before the name of the winner became clear. The tournament was a $365 No-Limit Hold’em one and attracted as many as 174 players from all over the nation as well as several international ones. Entries generated a prize pool of $52,200 and the top 18 finishers received a share of the money. Lowest payouts totaled $700.
Day 1 of the event was completed with seven players bagging up their chips. The survivors returned for Day 2 to play down to a champion. Seven-handed action kicked off with Mark Lackritz as the chip leader with 439,000. Cory Waaland was second in chips at that time with 322,000. In fact, the two players faced each other heads-up, but Lackritz was obviously short of luck last night and had to settle for the runner-up finish. The player from Solon, Ohio collected $8,710 for his efforts. This was his first-ever WSOP-related cash.
Here are the rest of the players at the official nine-handed final table and their respective payouts:
Robert Palfrey from Seattle, Washington finished 3rd to scoop $6,270 of the prize pool. Danny Gonzales from Denver, Colorado took 4th place for a payout of $4,595. Andrew Gilmore from Raleigh, North Carolina received $3,427 for finishing 5th.
Pedro Rios from Houston, Texas took 6th place in the event, good for $2,601. Neil Scott from Mammoth Lakes, California finished 7th for $2,008. Andrew Robbins from Cincinnati, Ohio took home $1,575 for his 8th place. Rounding out the final table, Miranda Zeller from Bremerton, Washington took 9th place to receive a payout of $1,256.
