Belgian poker pro Michael Gathy has just added another gold bracelet to his collection of poker titles. The player emerged as the winner of the 2016 WSOP $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed tournament a few hours ago. Apart from the gold piece of WSOP jewelry, he also scooped a nice payout of $560,843 for his victory.
There are only two Belgian players to have won gold bracelets so far, with the other being Davidi Kitai. Both now have three gold pieces each.
Gathy won his first WSOP gold bracelet in 2012 for taking down the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em. Bracelet number two came a year later. The Belgian emerged victorious in the $1,000 Turbo No-Limit Hold’em. Overall, Gathy has cashed in 15 WSOP events and his winnings from the Series currently amount to more than $1.4 million.
As mentioned above, the player has most recently won this year’s $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed, a three-day event played at Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino from June 21-23. As many as 541 entries paid the $5,000 buy-in to create a prize pool of $2,542,700. Each of the top 82 finishers scooped a portion of the money. And all six final table players were guaranteed a minimum payout of $76,112.
Speaking of the final table, it was one to be comprised of a set of players from all around the world. Apart from the Belgian champion, there was a Frenchman, a Spaniard, a US player, a UK one, and a player from Vietnam.
Gathy faced Adrien Allain from France in a final heads-up battle. Play started with the Frenchman holding the chip lead and lasted 77 hands in total. It could be said that Allain gave his last remaining opponent quite a hard time but had to settle for the runner-up, eventually.
Hand #149 was the one to determine the champion. Allain raised from the button to 225,000 and Gathy three-bet to 675,000. His opponent called. The flop came [Ad][7s][3s]. Gathy bet 450,000 and Allain called. The [Kd] came on the turn to see Gathy check. Allain bet 800,000 and the Belgian called. The [Jc] appeared on the river. Gathy checked and his French opponent moved all in. Gathy called in the blink of an eye, tabling [Kh][Jd]. Allain turned over [8s][6s]. The player took a consolation prize of $346,632 for his deep run into the tournament.
Manuel Saavedra Nunez from Spain finished 3rd for $229,990. Blake Eastman from New York City took 4th place for a payout of $155,762. Scott Margereson from the UK was paid $107,723 for finishing 5th. Thi Nguyen from Vietnam collected $76,112 for rounding out the official six-handed final table.
