Poker player Michael Gathy won his first WSOP gold bracelet along with $440,829 playing the $1,000 NL Hold’em event, the second WSOP event he had entered in his poker career.
Twenty-three year old Michael Gathy of Belgium usually plays online, but decided to take part in the WSOP this year. He has won several live poker tournaments, including the Main Even of the Belgian Poker Series. But he attaches a lot of importance to his recent WSOP win.
“Yea, it means a lot because it’s the World Series, you know, cause it’s so big and what not. Of course, it means a lot to me.”
Gathy has also just become the second Belgian to win a WSOP event. The first Belgian player who became a WSOP champion was Davidi Kitai. However, he hopes that his WSOP achievement doesn’t make him too famous in Belgium.
The poker action at the final table was quite exciting with blinds going up at a rapid pace. Several talented poker players folded during the initial phases, and some of them were Josh Field, Eric Davis, and others. Finally, only five players were left playing at the table, and all of them had a good-sized chip stack. By the time Baldwin was eliminated, it was time for dinner break, and after dinner break, the poker action became more exciting than ever.
The next player to leave the table was Esposito, after which the game continued among three players for more than one hour. The player who finished third turned out to be Noah Vaillancourt, leaving Armstrong and Gathy playing heads-up at the table. While Armstrong had a chip stack of over 4 million chips, Gathy had slightly less than 4 million chips. Initially, it looked as if Armstrong would win the heads-up, but Gathy had pocket tens, which clearly had an advantage over Armstrong’s pocket nines, as a result of which Gathy emerged as the WSOP bracelet winner.
Michael Gathy got $440,829 and the WSOP bracelet as he was the last man standing. The first and second runners-up were Jamie Armstrong and Noah Vaillancourt, who won $273,776 and $193,089, respectively. The players who finished fourth, fifth, and sixth were John Esposito, Eric Baldwin, and Eric Davis, who won $139,457, $101,948, and $75,422, respectively. The players who finished seventh, eighth, and ninth were Jean-Louis Santoni, Jason Manggunio, and Josh Field, who won $56,543, $42,749, and $32,748, respectively.
