Alexander "MightyWarior" Stacey Claims 1st Bracelet in Event #61: $300 Monster Stack for $127,660
And that makes it the third bracelet for the United Kingdom during the GGPoker WSOP Online Bracelet Events as Alexander "MightyWarior" Stacey takes down Event #61: $300 Monster Stack NLHE 6-Handed for $127,660, the WSOP Europe package, and his first bracelet by besting Craig "Tonkaiktomni" Lecompte heads-up. The tournament attracted 3,491 entries to create a prize pool of $973,989 just shy of a million.
Stacey seems to be a relatively unknown player as he has one cash recorded on The Hendon Mob for $1,100 and looks to have scored his biggest cash ever to follow in the footsteps of Roberto Romanello and Patrick Kennedy as they have also claimed a bracelet earlier on in this series.
Stacey and Lecompte were accompanied by Sami "ToasterBono" Koivuneva, Arnaud Enselme, Michael "Blank0DMT" Schwartz, Hui "rrnutscn" Wang, Steve O'Dwyer, Wai Ching "KEN-C" Cheang, and Tal "tel aviv" Herzog on the final table.
Event #61: $300 Monster Stack NLHE Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alexander "MightyWarior" Stacey | United Kingdom | $127,660 |
| 2 | Craig "Tonkaiktomni" Lecompte | United States | $99,552 |
| 3 | Sami "ToasterBono" Koivuneva | Finland | $70,964 |
| 4 | Arnaud Enselme | France | $50,586 |
| 5 | Michael "Blank0DMT" Schwartz | France | $36,059 |
| 6 | Hui "rrnutscn" Wang | China | $25,704 |
| 7 | Steve O'Dwyer | Ireland | $18,323 |
| 8 | Wai Ching "KEN-C" Cheang | China | $13,061 |
| 9 | Tal "tel aviv" Herzog | Israel | $9,311 |
Road to the Final Table
The late registration period of the tournament lasted 210 minutes and when that timer ran out, just over 1,000 players were left in the field, and over half of them needed to bust for the rest to be in the money for at least $697. It would take almost 90 minutes before it was time for the bubble with 443 players left while only 440 would get paid.
Grigoriy "Galdhopiggen" Rodin ended up bursting the bubble by taking out Simon "sprhightrolr" Grabenschweiger in a swingy hand. Rodin held pocket treys while Grabenschweiger had king-queen. The king-trey-queen flop gave Rodin bottom set and Grabenschweiger two pair and some hope. The seven on the turn didn't change things and the river made the hand of Rodin even better as he improved to quads.
As usual, as soon as the bubble burst, a bunch of eliminations come flying in. And it was no different here, GGPoker Twitch Streamer Michiel "Easterdamnz" Van Elsacker ran his ace-king into the ace-nine of Jiahuan "brahms" He. Another streamer, Bryan Paris fell shortly after, as did players like Alex Foxen, Samuel Vousden, Romanello, Simon Higgins, and Connor Drinan while O'Dwyer took the chip lead.
GGPoker Ambassador Daniel Negreanu was eliminated by Alexandru "Leo Messi10" Farcasanu when he three-bet shoved his 17 big blind in with king-queen. Farcasanu held jacks and those held throughout the runout of the board.
Four hours after the bubble burst, the field was down to two tables. Stacey took out Trygve "FullSendWig" Leite and Charles "TheMadQueen" La Boissonniere took care of Farcasanu to get to the final table bubble. But La Boissonniere was next to go in tenth place thanks to Schwartz.
Slow Start, Quick Finish
O'Dwyer and Wang came into the final table with the two biggest stacks worth 45 big blinds while Cheang was the shortest with eight. It would take 40 minutes before Herzog busted after others doubled up first. Fifteen minutes later, Cheang got chucked out of the tournament by Koivuneva who had also eliminated Herzog.
O'Dwyer had lost his chip lead when he doubled Enselme up and then got his last 14 big blinds in with ace-nine. Schwartz held kings to prevent the well-know player from winning his first bracelet. Stacey then doubled through Schwartz for the chip lead and didn't let it go anymore.
He eliminated Wang in sixth place while Enselme took out Schwartz in fifth place. But Stacey then took out Enselme to get to three-handed play. Koivuneva doubled up through Lecompte before the latter then doubled back up twice through the former to leave him short. Koivuneva then shoved his last five big blinds with ace-king and was ahead against the ace-trey of Stacey but the trey on the flop signaled the end of Koivuneva's tournament life.
Heads-up play lasted for eleven hands and in the final one, Lecompte raised and then called for his last 22 big blinds with king-queen. Stacey held ace-nine and held throughout the runout with the higher kicker to claim the win and his first bracelet.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be back on Sunday, August 16 with big selection of action to follow. Event #62: $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha starts at 6 p.m. UTC and there's the Event #64: $840 Super Turbo Bounty No Limit Hold'em at 8:30 p.m. But most eyes will be on Event #63: $500 Mini Main Event at 6:30 p.m. as that event has a whopping guarantee of $5,000,000. So make sure to come back for all the updates right here.