Poker player Tamer Korman from Centralia, Washington became the winner of the 2015/16 WSOP Circuit Bally’s Event #2 to collect a first career gold ring and $19,459 in prize money. It is interesting to note that Korman traveled to Las Vegas to celebrate his 50th birthday and as it could be seen, he has made quite a present to himself.
The $580 No-Limit Hold’em kicked off on Sunday, February 28, and was almost completed on the same day. After the end of Level 21, which was when play was scheduled to stop, there were three players left and they decided to keep on playing. At the time when one of them was eliminated, the two heads-up opponents decided to call it a day and to return on Monday to play down to a winner.
The tournament attracted a field of 139 players who created a prize pool of $69,500. The money was distributed to the top 15 finishers, with lowest payouts worth $1,173. The money bubble burst late on Sunday and players were then quickly down to just two. Korman had to face Edward O’Connel from Miller Place, New York heads-up. As mentioned above, the two players bagged up their chips and returned on Monday to determine who the eventual champion would be.
Two-handed play began with Korman holding almost two times more chips than his opponent. He had a total of 1,084,000 against O’Connel’s 584,000. However, it was not the latter’s lucky day on Monday and he had to settle for the consolation prize of $12,028 he received for his runner-up finish.
Local player Keith Ferrera took 3rd place in the tournament for a total of $8,682. Alexandro Tricarico from Belgium finished 4th, good for $6,379. Vincent Sperrazza from Bremerton, Washington collected $4,769 for taking 5th place in the event.
Ivo Gerber finished 6th, taking home the amount of $3,626. Stephen Diamantas from Lakeland, Florida received the amount of $2,803 for his 7th place. Kindah Sakkal from Lynnwood, Washington took 8th place for $2,202. And Kerry Shears from Rocky Harbour, Canada finished 9th to scoop the amount of $1,758 of the entire prize pool.
With the first two events on the schedule of the 2015/16 WSOP Circuit Bally’s stop being completed, there are still ten more gold rings up for grabs. Bally’s will play host to the popular Series until March 7, when the winner of the four-day $1,675 Main Event with a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million is expected to be determined.
