Ryan Fee from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Doug Polk from Las Vegas, Nevada have become the champions of the brand new $1,000 Tag-Team No-Limit Hold’em, a tournament format introduced for this year’s edition of the WSOP. The two players collected a total of $153,358 for their terrific performance. There was also a gold bracelet for each of them.
This has been a second Series victory for Polk. The player captured his first WSOP title in 2014 for taking down the $1,000 Turbo No-Limit Hold’em. Unlike his teammate who is known to be a tournament regular and a proficient online player, Fee is mostly a cash game player. Following last night’s victory, Fee said that he would definitely appear in tournaments more frequently from now on.
The $1,000 Tag-Team No-Limit Hold’em was the first WSOP team event in 34 years. The last such tournament was played in 1982. It was a Mixed Doubles one and featured teams of two players (a male and a female one) who competed playing Seven-Card Stud variant.
The Tag-Team event had no restriction as to the number or gender of participating players. The only requirement for teams was to be comprised of between two and four team members. What is more, any of the players in a given team who played a round of blinds during Day 1 of the event was eligible to be awarded a gold bracelet.
The $1,000 Tag-Team No-Limit Hold’em was a three-day event, played from July 6-8. There were as many as 863 teams to enter the tournament. The overall prize pool totaled $776,700. The money was distributed to the top 130 teams.
Day 3 of the event kicked off with nine remaining teams returning for the official final table. Fee and Polk were the chip leaders at that time with a considerable advantage over their opponents.
Of being one of the skilled teams to enter the event, Polk said that it was a huge advantage for them as there was not so much pressure as in weaker teams where teammates were just too worried not to “screw things up.”
The final table took 210 hands for the winning team to be determined. Head-up was played between the Fee/Polk team and a team comprised of Niel Mittelman from Libertyville, Illinois, Adam Greenberg from Long Grove, Illinois, and Gabriel Paul.
On the very last hand for the night and the event as a whole, Paul raised to 90,000 and Fee called. The [As][10s][7h] appeared on the flop and Fee checked. Paul Bet 90,000 and Fee called. The [9s] came on the turn to see Fee check again. Paul bet 180,000 and Fee called. The river came [5d] and Fee checked for the last time. Paul moved all in to see his opponent call instantly. Fee tabled [Kd][3s] against Paul’s [Ad][10c]. The Mittelman/Greenberg/Paul team collected $94,748 for its runner-up finish.
Marvin Rettenmaier and Mohsin Charania finished 3rd in the event for $66,458. Christopher Godfrey and James Dempsey took 4th place for a payout of $47,278. TJ Shulman and John Gale took $34,118 for their fifth-place finish.
A team comprised of Owais Ahmed, Adam Owen, Benny Glaser, and Bart Lybaert took 6th place for $24,982. Robert Altman and Reuben Peters finished 7th, good for $18,564. Michael Padula, Marco Caruso, and Daniel Urban were paid a total of $14,003 for their 8th place.
Jonathan Little, Larry Little, and Rita Little were the team to round out the official final table. The Littles took home $10,724.
