Monday, June 29, 2015 5:27 AM Local Time
Alexander Petersen Wins Event #54 - $10K PLO Championship
EVENT #54: $10,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha
ENTRIES: 387
PRIZE POOL: $3,637,800
FIRST PLACE PRIZE: $927,655
PLACES PAID: 40
DATES: June 26-28, 2015
Alexander Petersen Wins Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship
Danish Online Poker Pro Earns First WSOP Gold Bracelet and Collects $927,655
Petersen Stages Wild Comeback versus Jason Mercier, Denies Floridian His Fourth WSOP Title
MEET THE LATEST WSOP GOLD BRACELET CHAMPION
Name: Alexander Petersen
Birthplace: Aarhus, Denmark
Age: 31
Current Residence: Aarhus, Denmark
Marital Status: Single
Children: None
Profession: Professional Poker Player
Number of WSOP Cashes: 1
Number of WSOP Final Table Appearances: 1
Number of WSOP Gold Bracelet Victories: 1
Best Previous WSOP Finish: None
Total WSOP Earnings: $927,655
Personal
Facts: Petersen is one of the top Pot-Limit Omaha players in the
world, by virtue of his cash game online winnings playing this game over
the past 7 years
[Note: All statistics above include the results of this tournament]
Alexander
Petersen is probably a name most poker fans haven’t heard of before.
But that’s likely to change with his startling come-from-behind
tournament victory on the biggest stage in poker this evening, when he
won his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet. The Danish poker pro
win the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship, which was played
out over the last three days and completed at the Rio in Las Vegas.
The
Pot-Limit World Championship attracted 387 players, which created a
$3,537,800 prize pool. The top 40 finishers collected a payout.
Petersen plowed through a tough final table, and left the runner up
Jason Mercier shaking his head from an absolutely bizarre turn of events
in the closing stages of heads-up play that dumbfounded all witnesses
for how quickly the chip lead and outcome was reversed.
Petersen
was behind in chips by about a 3 to 1 margin when heads-up play
commenced, then quickly doubled up, and before the chips had been
re-stacked he had Mercier all in and covered holding what turned out to
be the winning hand. Meanwhile, Mercier on the verge of winning his
second gold bracelet of the summer was instead left with disappointment,
inasmuch as a $572,989 consolation prize can be considered a blow.
For
his victory, the first major live tournament win of Petersen’s career,
he raked in a whopping $927,655 in prize money. This was one of the
largest top cash prizes of the series, so far. Remarkably, this marked
Petersen’s first time to cash at the series. Even though he’d come and
previously played at the WSOP, the 31-year-old Dane never really took
the live tournaments seriously, instead opting to play and have fun in
Las Vegas.
“Coming
to Las Vegas was always a break for me, away from playing,” Peterson
explained. “This is first event I played here where I really took it
seriously, and it paid off.”
Nonetheless,
Petersen is no stranger to poker or success in the game. He’s
relatively unknown in live settings because virtually all of his
accolades have taken place online. Petersen has been a full-time
professional poker player for 11 years, and has specialized in online
Pot-Limit Omaha cash games for the past 7. Hence, he was beyond
experienced at this level and arguably arrived at this final table as
the player who had played more Pot-Limit Omaha hands than anyone else.
When
asked how high the stakes are when he usually plays, Petersen remarked
that he’s “used to winning or losing half a million in a single month.”
Petersen’s
early poker background is just as interesting. He started playing
online while in business school. He even worked as a computer
programmer and helped to design home pages. Then, he discovered poker
and started playing. Once he found online poker, Petersen came to learn
that as he got better at the game and continued to increase his level
of skill, he started winning more.
“In
poker, you get out what you put into it,” Petersen said. “I used to
play my favorite hands and all that, then I started learning that if you
studied and got really good, you could make a living at this. I’ve
been making my living at poker for more than ten years now.”
Petersen
has played in several European Poker Tour events in the past, with some
cashes, but nothing on the scale of a WSOP victory.
No
less than four of the nine final table players had previously won gold
bracelets, including Hasan Habib (1 win), Shaun Deeb (1 win), Davidi
Kitai (3 wins), and Jason Mercier (3 wins). However, in the end it was
an online specialist who came out of nowhere who obliterated the dreams
of several other experienced players and walked away with the title and
the coveted gold bracelet.
When asked about what plans he has for the huge financial boost, Petersen was a little less enthusiastic.
“Where
I live (in Denmark), we have to pay a lot of taxes – something like 55
percent,” Petersen said. “So, after I pay taxes on this money, it means
I really came in second.”
Following Petersen’s finish in the top spot, the descending order of results was as follows:
Second Place: Jason
Mercier, from Davie, FL finished in 2nd place, which paid $572,989.
Mercier almost became the third player of this year’s series to win
duel gold bracelets (Max Pescatori and Brian Hastings were the others).
However, his hopes crumbled in the final stage of this tournament, much
of Petersen’s delight. Mercier, who won WSOP titles in 2009, 2011, and
2015 collected $572,989, which was the third-best score of Mercier’s
career at the WSOP. His career winnings at the annual series now totals
in excess of $3.5 million.
Third Place: Dan
Smith, from Las Vegas, NV finished in 3rd place, which paid $369,564.
This marked his second time to finish 3rd at this summer’s series. He
took the same spot earlier in the Deuce-to-Seven Lowball Championship.
Smith now has 22 cashes and more than $1.4 million on his WSOP resume.
Fourth Place:
Simon “Aces” Trumper, from Nottingham, UK finished in 4th place, which
paid $267,778. This marked Trumper’s deepest run at the WSOP in 13
years. The bombastic poker pro, who appeared on numerous televised
events in the past, has been one of England’s most colorful
personalities for many years, but still remains without a gold bracelet.
Fifth Place: Mohsin
Virani, from El Dorado, AR finished in 5th place, which paid $196,877.
Remarkably, this was his first time ever to cash at the WSOP.
Sixth Place: Steven
Reichardt, from Hamburg, Germany finished in 6th place, which paid
$146,857. This was Reichert’s second time to cash at the series.
Seventh Place: Davidi
Kitai, from Brussels, Belgium finished in 7th place, which paid
$111,134. He’s a three-time WSOP gold bracelet winner, with wins in
2008, 2013, and 2014. Kitai is now one WSOP win behind Max Pescatori
among European poker players with the most WSOP victories. However,
he’s the biggest winner in WSOP history ever from Belgium, with 24
cashes and more than $1.6 million in series earnings.
Eighth Place:
Shaun Deeb, from Troy, NY finished in 8th place. He won a gold
bracelet earlier in 2015, and was hoping for a second victory. This
would have been a double whammy of a WSOP had Deeb won, especially since
his previous victory was in the $10,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’em
championship. Instead, Deeb had to settle for a payout totaling
$85,306.
Ninth Place: Hasan
Habib, originally from Pakistan and now from Downey, CA finished in 9th
place, which rounded out the final table. He collected $66,463. Habib
won his gold bracelet back in 2004. He also finished 4th in the 2000
WSOP Main Event Championship.
OTHER IN-THE-MONEY FINISHERS:
Aside
from the final table finishers, other gold bracelet winning players who
cashed included – Brian Rast (30th), Sorel Mizzi (37th), and William
Kakon (40th).
Tony
“Top Cat” Cousineau cashed yet again (31st), which is the 72nd
in-the-money finish of his career. It’s also his fourth cash at this
year’s series. Cousineau is the all-time cashes leader in WSOP history
without a gold bracelet victory.
FUN FACTS:
Pot-Limit
poker made its WSOP debut back in 1984, when two Pot-Limit Omaha
tournaments were offered. There were no Pot-Limit tournaments of any
kind played at the WSOP from 1970 through 1983.
The
only Pot-Limit variety which was played at the WSOP between 1984 and
1991 was Pot-Limit Omaha. Pot-Limit Hold’em action was restricted to
cash games.