After five days of play, the $50,000 Buy-In Poker Players Championship event has concluded. The tournament attracted as many as 91 entrants who created a prize pool of $4,176,000. At the end, it was Brian Rast who emerged victorious to capture the third gold bracelet in his poker career as well as the amount of $1,296,097 of the accumulated prize pool.
Rast’s victory has been defined by many as the most difficult and at the same time the most rewarding achievement in his professional poker career so far. The winner himself agreed that this has been his greatest accomplishment and added that the heads-up battle was tough and yet satisfying.
He also admitted that there were times when his performance was unsatisfactory and drew the first level of Day Three as an example. However, he said that the tournament structure was very forgiving and overall, he was happy with his performance at the final table.
The 34-year-old Nevada resident managed to defeat some really tough opponents and as a result, his name was added to the names of iconic players such as Mike Gorodinsky, Freddy Deeb, Michael Mizrachi, David Bach, Johnny Hennigan, etc.
However, his accomplishment from last night got him even one step ahead of the aforementioned players. Rast became the second player who has won the Poker Players Championship twice in 2011 and 2016, respectively. The other player who can take pride in having collected two bracelets is Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi, who was declared a winner in 2010 and 2012.
As for the final table in this year’s tourney, it was formed by 14 top finishers including Robert Mizrachi who finished 14th and collected the amount of $75,833 for his efforts. The PPC defending champion Mike Gorodinsky finished 13th. The 12th position was occupied by Daniel Negreanu. The other notable finishers were Paul Volpe (11th), Rep Porter (10th), Elior Sion (9th), Daniel Alaei (8th) Tommy Hang (7th), Ray Dehkharghani (6th), Wil Winkinson (5th), Michael Mizrachi (4th).
Eric Wasserson was the bronze medallist in this year’s tournament and scooped $545,772 of the accumulated prize pool. Back in 2014, he finished second in the PPC event.
The heads-up play between Brian Rast and Justin Bonomo sent the latter to the runner-up position. Bonomo got a consolation prize of $801,048. This was the fourth event this summer he made it to the top three. He has also cashed in WSOP events 40 times and his earnings exceed $3.5 million.
This was the 55th event on 2016 WSOP schedule, which means as many as 14 gold bracelets await their owners.
