Another day has gone by and another 2016 WSOP victor has been crowned. Cesar Garcia, originally from the Canary Islands and now residing in Wales, has become the latest player to join the club of the WSOP gold bracelet holders. He captured his career first gold piece and $447,739 for winning the $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event after a heads-up battle against Bulgarian Viliyan Petleshkov that extended into two days.
Of his victory and his first-ever gold bracelet, Garcia said that it was a dream come true, the most important achievement in the world of poker.
The $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em featured a massive field of 1,419 entries who created a prize pool of more than $2.5 million. A share of the money was collected by the top 213 finishers. Although play was scheduled to take place from June 15 to June 17, it continued into a fourth day as the last two remaining players could not determine a winner on Day 3 of the event.
The tournament’s third day of play kicked off with 27 survivors, led by Anthony Spinella, who won last year’s WSOP online event. At the time the unofficial final table of ten was set, Garcia was the chip leader with 3,000,000 in chips. The player maintained his advantage for the greater part of the day.
Two-handed battle continued for hours without a winner emerging. Late on Friday, organizers decided to stop play and action was extended into an additional fourth day. The two remaining hopefuls started Day 4 of the tournament with Petleshkov being slightly ahead of his only opponent. However, Garcia quickly caught up and took the lead. The player won the very last pot with a 2-1 advantage over the Bulgarian.
On what turned out to be the last hand in play, Garcia limped on the button and Petleshkov raised to 600,000. Garcia re-raised all in and Petleshkov called. The Spaniard showed [Ac][6d] and his opponent turned [Kc][Jh] over. The board ran out [4s][4d][3c][7d][8d], thus securing Garcia with the pot and the victory. The Bulgarian collected $276,660 for his second-place finish.
Garcia and Petleshkov were part of an international nine-handed final table that also featured an Irish player, a Ukrainian, a Brazilian, an Englishman, and three US players. Yuriy Boyko from Ireland finished 3rd for $198,185.
Adrian Buckley from Westminster, Colorado took 4th place for $143,598. Kamel Mokhammad from Ukraine collected $105,253 of the entire prize pool for his 5th place in the tournament. Englishman Craig McCorkell finished 6th for a payout of $78,053.
Craig Varnell from Ft Collins, Colorado scooped $58,569 for taking 7th place. Thiago Nishijima from Brazil took 8th place, good for $44,478. Anthony Spinella from Las Vegas, Nevada, rounded out the official final table for $34,188.
