The Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown $3,500 Championship, one of the four headlining tournaments in this year’s edition of the co-branded Seminole Hard Rock Poker/WPT series, has just been completed with poker pro Justin Young from Henderson, Nevada emerging victorious to collect the amount of $654,161 and a seat into the inaugural season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
The Championship event attracted the attention of a number of seasoned poker professionals, former WPT winners, and other well-known names in the world of poker. However, Young bested them all to win the second-best live tournament cash in his career. Including his prize last night, the player now has more than $4.3 million in live tournament winnings.
Winning the $3,500 Championship event at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood was not an easy task. The tournament attracted a field of 1,222 entries. It featured a guaranteed prize pool of $2 million but the amount of $3,910,400 was eventually amassed.
The event’s ten-handed final table was played on Wednesday. Action started with Hyoung Chae holding the chip lead with 6,225,000. Young was sixth in chips at that time and remained around the middle of the chip counts until the first brake. Following the second break, the player was in a neck-and-neck race for the chip lead with Chae. Eventually, Young busted Chae in 3rd place.
The champion had to face Garrett Greer heads-up. At the beginning of two-handed play, Greer had a significant advantage over his opponent. However, Young needed less than half an hour to change the course of the event in his favor and less than an hour to defeat Greer.
On what turned out to be the last hand in play, Greer went all in for his last 10,300,000 with the [As][8d] against his opponent’s [Kh][Qs]. The board ran out [Ah][Ks][4c][Jd][Qh]. Young’s two pair was more than enough to secure him with the title and the first-place prize. As for Greer, he took home $458,722 for his performance.
As mentioned above, start-of-the-day chip leader Hyoung Chae took 3rd place, good for $297,336. Matthew Haugen finished 4th for $220,207. Tim Reilly scooped $164,113 for taking 5th place in the event. Ben Tarzia received $132,560 for his 6th place.
Sam Soverel finished 7th for $110,357. Andrey Plotnikov took 8th place for $87,880. Cate Hill was paid $65,404 for her 9th place. William Foxen finished 10th, good for $49,627.
