Poker player Michael Kaczmarek from Concord, North Carolina has just topped the field of the $365 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed with a guaranteed prize pool of $50,000, or Event #4 on the schedule of the 2015/16 WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Cherokee poker festival. The player scooped a first-place prize of $29,462 and his first career WSOP Circuit gold ring.
Kaczmarek emerged victorious over a field of 427 entries. All the players who entered the two-day event created an overall prize pool of $128,100. As many as 47 hopefuls were paid for their efforts, with payouts starting from $487.
As mentioned above, it took two days of play for the winner to be determined. Day 2 of the event started with ten players returning to play down to a six-handed final table and eventually to a champion. Six-handed play started about an hour and a half after the beginning of the day. It kicked off with James Adams as the chip leader. The player had a total of 1,077,000 in chips. Kaczmarek was second in chips at the beginning of the final table.
The official six-handed final table featured only one former gold ring winner – Sean Stevens. The player collected his cold piece at a WSOP Circuit Choctaw event in 2014. At the time when there were only three players remaining on the felt, Kaczmarek was the short stack with 850,000. Stevens was second in chips with 1,200,000. Derrick Cutler was the chip leader with 2,200,000.
Eventually, Cutler and Kaczmarek had to face each other heads-up. And as already mentioned, it was the latter who won the event, the gold ring, and the first-place prize of $29,462, holding pocket sixes on what turned out to be the last hand in play. Kaczmarek is not a professional poker player. He works as a physician in the emergency department of a South Carolina hospital. Including his prize from last night, his WSOP-related earnings now amount to more than $40,000.
As for his heads-up opponent from Marietta, Georgia, he received $18,321 for his runner-up finish. One-time gold ring winner Sean Stevens from Las Vegas, Nevada took 3rd place in the event for a payout of $12,964. Jimbo Wilson from Flowery Branch, Georgia finished 4th and scooped the amount of $9,178 of the entire prize pool.
James Adams from Atlanta, Georgia received $6,593 for his 5th place. Rounding out the official six-handed final table, Sam Sykes from Charlotte, North Carolina took 6th place to collect a payout of $4,782.
