PAUL VOLPE PREVAILS OVER STACKED $10K DEUCE FINAL TABLE
At a similar final table he barely missed making last year, surrounded entirely by players who already had won gold bracelets, party-crasher Paul Volpe proved his poker worth, winning one of the most coveted titles in the game--the $10,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Single-Draw championship.

Volpe earned $253,524 for the victory, not to mention the bragging rights that come with beating one of the most stacked WSOP final tables in recent memory.  Jason Mercier (3rd), Brian Rast (4th), Larry Wright (5th), John Monnette (6th) and Abe Mosseri (8th) were all present in the line-up, as was the reigning WSOP Player of the Year Daniel Negreanu, who was heads-up for a bracelet for the 12th time in his illustrious career.  The heads-up battle was so electric, it appeared to have crashed the internet at the Rio, which experienced a total outage during heads-up action.  That didn't stop play in the event nor dampen anyone's enthusiasm though.

“It feels amazing to get my first bracelet, especially in the $10K Deuce-to-Seven (event), which is one of the toughest events of the summer,” Volpe said afterward.  “I was confident I was going to win.  I felt like I was going to win.  It was a super-tough table.  It was unbelievable getting heads-up against Daniel.  If I have to pick one person to beat for my bracelet, it would be him.” 
 
Not only did Volpe win himself a quarter of a million dollars, he also may have saved several members of the high-stakes poker community a chunk of change, as a number of them have bracelet bets centered on whether or not Negreanu or Phil Ivey will win a bracelet this year. Negreanu certainly gave the community a sweat, and a number of players joined the rail to watch the action.
 
“I knew what this meant to Daniel, because he has so many bets,” Volpe said.  “So, I tried keeping the pressure on him and it worked.”

“I think he wants to win so bad – he plays amazing, I’m not saying he doesn’t – but as we were getting deeper and deeper he could have been hesitant to put all the chips in,” Volpe speculated.  “He really wanted to get heads up and go from there.  So, I took advantage of that and put a lot of pressure back on him.”
 
This is the first bracelet and first WSOP final table for Volpe, who has a number of other cashes and poker scores to his name, including a run in the 2012 WSOP Main Event, but no breakout moment on the WSOP stage prior to this moment.  It was an electrifying way to make a splash and Paul Volpe certainly isn't a name we'll be forgetting any time soon.
 
Not to let things settle and celebrate, moments after winning, Volpe rant to registration to play in that night's event.  "I have keep this going, I have to keep my fantasy investors happy,” Volpe joked as he immediately went off to play the next event on the schedule, which was already underway.

This year’s $10,000 buy-in event drew 87 players, the exact number it drew last year. The prize pool came in at $817,800. The top 14 finishers each earned a payday and the list of those who cashed included more players with bracelets than those without. Greg Mueller (12th), Joe Cassidy (11th), and Rep Porter (8th) were the bracelet winners who cashed shy of the final table, while the final table itself featured just one player without a bracelet, Volpe.

The final table boasted a total of 14 bracelets across the seven players, including reigning WSOP Player of the Year Daniel Negreanu. Of those, the only player with a 2-7 Single Draw bracelet was perhaps the least well-known player at the table, Larry Wright. Wright won his 2-7 bracelet in the $1,500 buy-in version of the event back in 2012.

Here are the final table results from the $10,000 No Limit 2-7 Event:

1st: Paul Volpe - $253,524
2nd: Daniel Negreanu - $156,674
3rd: Jason Mercier- $99,313
4th: Brian Rast - $67,264
5th: Larry Wright - $47,792
6th: John Monnette - $35,549
7th: Abe Mosseri - $27,633