The Main Event of the WSOP Circuit Season 6 opener at the Horseshoe Casino in Chicago saw Dan Livingston take home a top prize of $291,749 and his first WSOP Circuit Ring. This marked Livingston’s first WSOP cash and his largest cash in Poker. His previous largest cash was online for $4,000. With this win he now expects to go on to compete in next years WSOP.
The Part time poker player won his entry to the event by sitting at the Horseshoe casino’s tables and taking part in their high card promotion. Officials at the venue would pick a table randomly and then each player would be handed a card and the highest card would win entry to the Main Event worth over $5,000. In all there were 56 seats given away and five of money finishers gained entry to the event this way, including the top two players.
The total prize pool for the event was $1,190,800 with the top 27 players cashing. Attendance for the Circuit event is up 12 percent this year with a total of 4,747 people participating, up from last years 4,298. Prize money is also up 20% with a total pool of $3,080,056 given away over ten days. This made it the biggest Poker event ever held in Chicago.
When play at the final table began Tom G. Flores was the chip leader with 1,410,000. However when it came to Heads-up play he was outnumbered by almost 10 to 1 by Livingston.
Heads-up lasted 30 minutes and the final hand came when Livingston was dealt J-3 of diamonds versus Floros Q-10 offsuit. After the flop came K-10-3 and two diamonds, all of Floros chips went into the pot. The turn was a bank. But a diamond on the river gave Livingston a flush and the victory.
The tournament began at noon on October 23rd and was played over three days. Play lasted 14 hours on Day One – ending up with 84 survivors. The following day, play lasted 12 hours – ending up with 17 survivors. Day Three play lasted 13 hours. The entire duration of the tournament lasted about 40 hours.
- Dan Livingston – $291,749
- Tom Floros – $180,287
- Chris Gentile – $119,556
- Tad Mosele – $84,594
- William Schweinebraten – $63,744
- William Miner – $50,871
- Joshua Goldstein – $42,881
- Jacob Bazeley – $38,082
- Michael Parisi – $35,533
