At the King's Casino in RozVegas, Damian Salas survived the final table of the 2020 WSOP Main Event International leg and won $1.55 million. Salas faded a field of 674 runners in the hybrid Main Event that began on GGPoker. He will now play the winner of the WSOP domestic final table at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas at the end of the month to determine the bracelet winner. Salas final tabled the 2017 WSOP Main Event with a seventh-place finish.
Ship it to Argentina! In a previous life, he raced cars. These days, Damian Salas gets his thrills on the poker felt. And he's only one heads-up battle away from becoming the 2020 WSOP Main Event Pandemic Champion.
Just a couple years ago, Salas got hot at the right time during the 2017 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. He advanced to the final table, one of the tougher ones in years, that included Benjamin Pollak, Antoine Saout, Jack Sinclair, Ben Lamb, John Hesp, and eventual champion Scott Blumstein. Salas busted in seventh place, but banked his largest live score to date with $1.4 million.
And just three years and a global pandemic later, Salas has a shot at winning his first bracelet. The final table winners of the international and domestic leg will meet in a $1 million heads-up battle that also has a WSOP bracelet on the line.
The WSOP Main Event Domestic final table will play out on December 28 in Las Vegas and that final nine includes 3-time bracelet winner Upeshka De Silva, Ryan Hagerty, Ye Yuan, Michael Cannon, Gershon 'jets613' Distenfeld, Ron Jenkins, Shawn Stroke, Harrison Dobin, and Joe Herbert. Salas will play one of those final table finishers for the cool million and the bling.
So, how did it begin for Salas? It started two weeks earlier at GGPoker, where they hosted the 2020 WSOP Main Event International. A total of 674 players took a shot at the glory and the prize pool worth nearly $6.5 million. Only the top 80 players were awarded a piece of the cheesecake, with the majority of it set aside to the champion with a $1.55 million payday. The runner-up also banked a cool million.
Brazil's Brunno Botteon bagged the lead at the end of Day 2 on GGPoker, before action was paused before the final players restarted the final table live at the King's Casino in RozVegas. BB had over 10.2 million in chips.
The final table also included Manuel "robocup" Ruivo (Portugal), Damian Salas (Argentina), fullbabyfull (Lichtenstein), Hannes "BlackFortuna" Speiser (Austria), Dominykas "MickeyMouse" Mikolaitis (Lithuania), Ramon "Ritza" Miquel Munoz (Spain), and Stoyan "UncleToni" Obreshkov (Bulgaria).
China's Peiyuan "fish3098" Sun was a no show in RozVegas. Sun was one of the short stacks at the final table, but decided to not make the trip. As a result, Sun was awarded ninth place, which paid out $75,360.
Austria's Hannes Speiser became the first player to hit the rail at the King's Casino when he bounced in eighth place. Bulgaria's Stoyan Obreshkov bounced in seventh place, while Lithuania's Dominykas Mikolaitis saw his run end in sixth place.
With five to go, Switzerland's Marco Streda hit the bricks. Spain's Ramon Munoz busted in fourth place and Salas held a monster lead. With three remaining, Salas almost held 3x as many chips as otteon and Ruivo combined.
Salas flushed out Ruivo on the river to send the player from Portugal packing in third place. Ruivo banked $728K for third place. Not too shabby, eh?
With two remaining, it was a heads-up battle between Brazil and Argentina. When the dust settled, Argentina prevailed.
Salas held a 24M to 14M lead over Brunno Botteon when heads-up began. But Boetteon could not stop Salas from racing to the finish line. Botteon busted in second place, which paid out a little more than $1 million.
Salas earned a first-place payout worth $1,550,969.
Before the WSOP Main Event began, Salas was currently ranked #4 on the all-time money lost in Argentina with $2.6 million in earnings.
Next up for Salas... Vegas, baby!
2020 WSOP Main Event International
Buy-in: $10,000
Entrants: 674
Prize Pool: $6,470,400
Payouts: 80
Final Table Results:
1. Damian Salas (Argentina) $1,550,969
2. Brunno Botteon (Brazil) $1,062,723
3. Manuel Ruivo (Portugal) $728,177
4. Ramon Miquel Munoz (Spain) $498,947
5. Marco Streda (Switzerland) $341,879
6. Dominykas Mikolaitis(Lithuania) $234,255
7. Stoyan Obreshkov (Bulgaria) $160,512
8. Hannes Speiser (Austria) $109,982
9. Peiyuan "fish3098" Sun (China) $75,360
