Two big bracelets were up for grabs Sunday night at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. Courtney Kennedy, a poker dealer from Detroit, Michigan, won the 2016 Ladies Championship. Kennedy survived a tough final table that included a couple of pros including Mandy Baker and Amanda Musumeci. Meanwhile, German wunderkind Fedor Holz won his first bracelet by taking down the One Drop. Holz faded a field of 183 runners and shipped Event #67 $111,111 High Roller for One Drop, which paid out nearly $5 million.
Two more bracelets were awarded at the Rio on Sunday night. The Ladies Championship was won not by a pro, but by a poker dealer! Courtney Kennedy deals cards at the Motor City Casino in Detroit, Michigan. She played in the WSOP Ladies event several times in the past, yet she never cashed. Kennedy finally cashed this summer... and made the final table... then won the entire thing for her first bracelet!
Over in the One Drop, Fedor ‘CrownUpGuy' Holz beat out Dan Smith heads-up to win Event #67 $111,111 High Roller. Holz has become one of the world's biggest rising stars in a short amount of time. Holz decimated High Roller events around the world over the last year or so, but he had not played a full slate of WSOP events until this summer. It looked like Holz might post a donut for the summer, but he shipped a bracelet in the last week of action. First place in the One Drop paid out nearly $5 million.
Meanwhile, Day 1B of the Main Event attracted a decent-sized crowd of 1,733 runners. Nearly 2,500 players have entered the Main Event thus far with registration still open.
Event #65 $10,000 Ladies NL Championship - Final Results
The final day of action saw nine ladies seeking the title of Ladies Champion. Wendy Freedman commenced the final table as the chip leader with a sizable stack and pro Mandy Baker was not far behind in second place. However when the dust settled, the bling was won by a poker dealer from Detroit... Courtney Kennedy.
Courtney Kennedy picked off Mandy Baker in second place and faded 818 ladies (and one dude) to win her first bracelet. First place paid out $149K to Kennedy, who had a slew of friends and family on the rail.
During the post-game interview Kennedy explained her lifetime love of the game, "I've had cards in my hand since I was two years old," Kennedy joked afterward. "I'm a home game player and I deal at Motor City Casino in Detroit. This game has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember."
2016 WSOP - Event #65 $10,000 Ladies NL Championship
Entrants: 819
Prize Pool: $745,200
Payouts: 123
Event #65 - Final Table Payouts:
1. Courtney Kennedy (USA) $149,108
2. Amanda Baker (USA) $92,121
3. Xiu Deng (USA) $64,401
4. Natalia Breviglieri (UK) $45,683
5. Amanda Musumeci (USA) $32,889
6. Shelly Johnson-Ochoa (USA) $24,037
7. Wendy Freedman (USA) $17,837
8. Nicole Schwartz (USA) $13,443
9. Yaxi Zhu (China) $10,292
Event #66 $1,000 NL WSOP.com ONLINE - Final Table
The final table of the online event will be played out live at the Rio. Last summer was the first time the WSOP introduced a bracelet event. The majority of the MTT is played online until they reach a final table, which is played out in a live setting at the Rio. It's really more of a "hybrid" event, but ya know... semantics.
This year's online event attracted 1,247 entries. They got down to a final table of six. Clayton "SLARKDUCK" Maguire is the overall chip leader. Also still alive... Simeon Naydenov (FeelGoodInc), Marc-Oliver Carpentier-Perrault (mariovideo), Park Yu Cheung (Sparrow), Spencer Taylr (TheGoat21), and Rich Tuhrim (jklolz).
The final six shall play out the remainder of the tournament out in real life. First place pays $210,279 plus a bracelet...and the bracelet is real too, not a virtual one!
2016 WSOP - Event #66 $1,000 NL WSOP.com ONLINE
Entrants: 1,247
Prize Pool: $1,184,650
Payouts: 153
Event #66 WSOP.com ONLINE - Final Table Payouts:
1. $210,279
2. $150,569
3. $110,172
4. $82,926
5. $59,233
6. $46,201
Event #67 $111,111 High Roller for One Drop NL - Day 4 and Final Table
Feeding time at the Rio. The big sharks too. $5 million was being dangled over the treacherous high roller shark tank at the Rio. The usual high rolling sadists were savagely eating up each other while vying for the One Drop bracelet and a small mountain of cash. $5 million is certainly not a drop in the bucket, eh?
Only 13 players made the cut at the end of Day 2. Action went quick at the start of Day 3 and they reached a final table in the early evening. Dan Smith went into the unofficial final table with 22.4M and a comfortable lead. Fedor Holz was 4/9 and Niall Farrell was the shorty.
Holz went to work right away and amassed a stack. Once he started gobbling up chips, no one could stop the German. Holz easily marched toward victory. The win in the One Drop marked his first-career bracelet. He's been able to beat some of the best high roller players in the world, but after six brutal weeks of grinding at the Rio, he finally took down his first bracelet.
2016 WSOP - Event #67 $111,111 NL High Roller for One Drop
Entrants: 183
Prize Pool: $19,316,565
Payouts: 28
ONE DROP - Final Table Payouts:
1. Fedor Holz (Germany) $4,981,775
2. Dan Smith (USA) $3,078,974
3. Koray Aldemir (Austria) $2,154,265
4. Jack Salter (UK) $1,536,666
5. Brian Green (USA) $1,117,923
6. Joe McKeehen (USA) $829,792
7. Nick Petrangelo (USA) $628,679
Event #68 $10,000 NL MAIN EVENT Championship - Day 1B
The second flight of the WSOP Main Event was underway on Sunday at the Rio. Day 1B attracted 1,733 runners, which just barely edged out last year's number. On Day 1A, only 567 players survived out of 764 runners. If my math is correct, that's a shade under 2,500 runners through the first two flights.
Russia's Andrey Zaichenko was one of the biggest stacks at the end of Day 1B and Belgium's Kenny Hallaert was not far behind.
Notables surviving the cut on Day 1B... Justin Schwartz, Justin Bonomo, Anthony Zinno, David Peters, Gavin Griffin, Greg Raymer, Page McConnell, Johnny Fucking Chan, Matt Jarvis, Eli Elezra, Melanie Weisner, Fabian Quoss, John Monnette, Matt Vengrin, Stevie Chidwick, Dietrich Fast, Benny Glasser, ELKY, Chris Bjorin, Olivier Busquet, Antonio Esfandiari, Chip Jett, JESUS, Vanessa Selbst, Maria Ho, Mark Gregorich, Max Pescatori, Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Ray Dehkharghani, Todd Wittles, Danielle Anderson, Jason Somerville, Adam Owen, Donnacha O'Dea, Antonie Saout, Jonathan Aguiar, and Dominik Nitsche.
Chainsaw Kessler busted near the end of the day. Other notables missing the cut... Talal Shakerchi, TJ Cloutier, Bobby Bellande, and Johnny World Hennigan.
