Jason Young, a single dad from Delray Beach, FL, topped a massive field of 1,634 entries to walk away with the WPTDeepStacks Hollywood title
Life has thrown a lot of obstacles at Jason Young over the past several years. But a few nights back, it gave him the opportunity to win a major poker title and the player captured that opportunity to outlast the massive field of the WPTDeepStacks Hollywood and collect $263,205 for his efforts.
The tournament took place at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. It drew nearly record attendance, with 1,634 entries paying the $1,100 buy-in to enter the event. He WPTDeepStacks Hollywood was the second largest Main Event in the history of the popular poker series.
The giant field generated a prize pool of $1,584,980 that was distributed in payouts for the top 205 finishers, min-cashes starting from $1,695. After five days of play, Young entered the tournament’s official final table as the chip leader with a solid stack and a comfortable advantage over his remaining opponents.
Final table action unfolded in the best possible way for the eventual champ. The player never relinquished his top position in the chip counts chart until heads-up.
Each of the nine final tablists was guaranteed a min-cash of $26,025. Stephen Ibrahim scooped that minimum payout for his ninth-place finish. Eddy Sabat walked away with $34,125 for finishing eighth in the tournament. He was followed by Quinn Bruno, Pedro Aldave, and Dave Inselberg, who collected $43,930, $53,785, and $66,760. Kevin Chan and Paul James Hizer were the next to leave, taking home $89,000 and $119,820, respectively.
That left it to Leif Force and Jason Young to battle it out for the title and the first-place prize.
Heads-Up
The heads-up match was a short but action-packed battle that saw Young lose his chip lead and climb back to claim the title and the accompanying six-figure payout. During the short minutes of the duel, Force managed to weaken his opponent for a very brief while. However, the player could not maintain his momentum and eventually had to settle for the second-place prize of $183,540.
As for Young, he scooped the tournament trophy and the $263,205 top prize, which also includes a $3,000 seat into the season-ending WPTDeepStacks Championship.
Young, who hails from New York but currently resides in Delray Beach, Florida, won a gold bracelet from the 2008 edition of the World Series of Poker. He then focused his attention on other life pursuits and had to abandon poker for a while. Young has opened a restaurant and has been raising his daughter all by himself so he hasn’t had much time to play poker the way he used to.
However, with his recent triumph in the WPTDeepStack Hollywood, the player said he wants to come back and “put in more volume” as he would do back in the day.
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