Sam Panzica has become the latest player to have his name engraved on the WPT Champions Cup. The WPT, one of the world’s largest poker tours, has turned it into tradition to place the name of each Main Tour Main Event champion on the large cup, thus celebrating their achievement.
Panzica won last night the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble $5,000 Main Event, a tournament that took place from October 14-18 at bestbet Jacksonville. The player collected $354,335 for his triumph and a number of other non-monetary prizes.
Panzica’s way to victory was a bumpy one. During heads-up, the player had to overcome his opponent Richard Malone’s large chip advantage. Panzica built his stack slowly and steadily with determination and without losing composure. Once emerging as the chip leader, he maintained his slow and methodical approach to the title and as it could be seen, this proved to be an effective strategy.
The $5,000 Main Event attracted a field of 379 entries, of whom 48 left with a share of the $1,762,350 prize pool. Each of the six finalists was guaranteed a minimum cash of $64,183.
Speaking of the final table, it was played on Tuesday, October 18. Six-handed play began with Panzica holding the most chips. The player had a total of 2,970,000 and was very closely followed by Malone with 2,950,000. It could be said that Malone literally overwhelmed the final table, or at least its early stages. It took the player a total of 40 hands to eliminate four of his opponents. Two-handed duel between Malone and Panzica then started with the former holding more than two times more chips than his last remaining opponent.
The two players then battled it out for hours, during which Panzica tried his best to improve. Malone maintained his momentum for a while and even managed to further extend his lead up to a point that gave little chances for Panzica to leave the tournament in any other way but as the runner-up. However, the player managed to beat the odds with slow and very well-thought-out moves.
Two-handed match took 145 hands for a winner to be determined. At the time when the final hand was played, Panzica had almost four times more chips than his opponent. The eventual winner started action on Hand #185 by moving all in. Malone called for his last 2,575,000, tabling [Ac][3d]. Panzica turned over [Kh][9c]. The board ran out [8s][7d][5s][9s][Kc], giving Panzica a two pair and the tournament title.
Malone’s runner-up finish secured him with a payout of $237,616. This has been Malone’s first WPT cash. If he had won the tournament at bestbet, he would have been the second consecutive winner to scoop a title at his WPT Main Event first cash after Zachary Smiley who emerged as the winner of the Maryland Live! Main Event.
Ankush Mandavia earned $152,766 for taking 3rd place in the bestbet tournament. Tyler Petterson, a one-time WPT champion, finished 4th for $100,643. Noah Scwartz, who was, too, going for his second WPT title, eventually took 5th place, good for $77,499. Paul Balzano collected $64,183 for his sixth-place finish in the bestbet Bounty Scramble Main Event.
