Canada’s Mike Watson topped the field of the 2016 PCA $5,300 Main Event last night to win the amount of $728,325 in prize money and the tournament trophy.
The prestigious tournament featured two starting flights and five more days of play. It saw as many as 928 entries who generated a prize pool of $4,500,800. The top 135 finishers were paid, with payouts starting from $8,860.
Day 6, the event’s final one, saw 6 players return to play down to a champion. Apart from Watson, Tony Gregg, who reached the final table of the PCA Main Event for the third time in his career, was also among the six finalists. Overall, there were five professionals at the table and a poker enthusiast from North Carolina. Rand Kritzer is a respected neurosurgeon in his home state and an occasional poker player.
Six-handed action started with Watson as the chip leader with a total of 6,585,000 and Kritzer as the short stack. Play resumed from Level 29 and it took 8 hands before the first player was eliminated. Kritzer could not hold up against Phillip McAllister and exited the tournament in 6th place, taking $153,920 for his efforts.
Action slowed a little bit and the next elimination came on Hand #91. Russian Vladimir Troyanovskiy hit the rail in 5th place to collect the amount of $207,940. Toby Lewis was the next to go. He was eliminated in 4th place by Watson. His payout amounted to $267,340. Phillip McAllister left the final table next. His 3rd place in the tournament secured him with the amount of $356,020.
The heads-up match between Gregg and Watson started with a two-way deal. The players agreed that Watson would take $695,325 and Gregg would collect $612,175. The remaining $33,000 were to be taken by the champion.
And it took two levels and 71 hands of play for the name of the big winner to become clear. Hand #215 turned out to be the last one for the evening and the tournament as a whole. Gregg limped from the button and Watson checked from the big blind. The [8h][6h][2h] appeared on the flop and Watson checked. Gregg bet 400,000 and his opponent raised to 1.2 million. Gregg then moved all in and Watson called.
The first tabled [As][8c] against the latter’s [7h][4s]. The [7s] appeared on the turn and the [5h] came on the river to secure Watson with the title. As for Gregg, he collected the amount of $612,175 for his runner-up finish. As mentioned above, this was the player’s third final table appearance in the PCA Main Event. In 2009, he finished 2nd in the prestigious tournament and took 6th place three years later.
Including his latest triumph, Watson’s live tournament winnings now amount to more than $9 million. The player had quite an impressive poker resume even prior to winning the 2016 PCA Main Event. In 2008, he won his first WPT title for $1.7 million. In 2012, he topped the field of the WSOP Europe €50,000 Majestic High Roller for a payout of €1 million. And the player has twelve more six-figure cashes in various other events.
With the completion of the $5,300 Main Event, this year’s edition of the PCA has come to a close. One of the world’s biggest poker festivals featured a total of 104 events and distributed millions of dollars to thousands of players.
