Sean Drake was the player who bested the field of the WPTDeepStacks Reno $1,100 Main Event late on Monday to collect $56,581, the tournament trophy, and a seat into the season-ending Championship. It took Drake a little less than 5 hours of play to emerge victorious.
The event attracted a field of 251 entries and a prize pool of $240,470 was generated. The top 27 places were paid, with payouts starting from $1,996. Day 3 of the tournament saw 9 players return to play the official final table and to determine the eventual champion. Nine-handed play started with Hank Czarnecki as the chip leader, holding a total of 1,311,000. Drake was fourth in chips at the time cards were thrown in the air.
Czarnecki maintained his lead for some time as he was responsible for the first three final table eliminations. Billy Wilson was the first to leave. His 9th place secured him with a payout of $5,651. Shortly after, Bill Watchman hit the rail in 8th place, good for $7,551. Babe Prescott left next. She collected $9,426 for her 7th place in the tournament.
Jose Rodriguez was the next to leave the final table. He was paid the amount of $11,350 for taking 6th place. Start-of-the-day chip leader Czarnecki was the next to go. He was eliminated in 5th place for a payout of $14,188. Ken Mills was soon after busted in 4th place for $18,901.
Three-handed play started with Drake holding the chip lead with 2,900,000. Wesley Hickey and Mike Harvey were the other two players left at the table, holding 1,400,000 and 1,900,000, respectively. Chips swung back and forth for some time, until Hickey was eliminated in 3rd place by Harvey to scoop $25,538.
Two-handed match started with Harvey as the chip leader. The player had almost two times more chips than his opponent. However, Drake did not need much time to regain momentum and eventually win the tournament. On what turned out to be the most important hand during the heads-up duel, Harvey raised to 320,000 and his opponent moved all in for 3,075,000. Harvey made the call quite quickly and turned over [10c][10h]. Drake had [Ah][Js]. The board ran out [Ad][8d][6d][As][7h], securing Drake with the pot and leaving his opponent with just 155,000.
The player went all in on the next hand with [Ah][8s]. Drake called with [Qh][Qs] and it was him who won that hand, too. Harvey collected the amount of $39,702 for his 2nd place in the tournament.
