Local real estate agent adds to impressive poker resume with his first career WSOP Circuit ring and $24,625.
Los Angeles, CA. (December 4, 2015) — Over the last several months, Dave Banerjee has been putting a lot of effort into his poker game. It paid off nicely for him on Friday night as he took home his first WSOP Circuit ring along with $24,625, topping a field of 368 in the $365 Monster Stack No Limit Hold’em.
“It feels good,” said Banerjee after his win. “I’ve put in a lot of training over the last few months online and I had a score about a week ago and to follow it up makes me feel like my thought processes are kind of running in the right way, you know.”
Banerjee’s win increases his career live tournament earnings to over $265,000, all of which coming in the Los Angeles area over the last 3 years. He doesn’t consider himself a professional player, but the local real estate broker has shown consistent results in the Southern California area over the last few years.
“I basically used to flip houses,” said the 41-year-old Yorba Linda, CA native. “I started playing poker after the divorce and it’s kind of turned into all of this craziness.”
Banerjee came into the day near the top of the chip counts, in sixth position of the final 23 players who returned for the second and final day of the tournament. He seemed to steadily chip up throughout the day and as they began the final table, he was still near the top of the counts.
When the final table got underway, the chips continued to fly. Knockouts piled up fairly quickly and in just a few hours, Banerjee was heads-up with Justin Rackley. Rackley came into the final table with the chip lead, but was at a chip deficit at the beginning of heads-up play.
Just a couple hands into heads-up play, they played a massive pot. On the river, Banerjee moved all in on the river with the board reading and Rackley spent a minute in the tank before calling.
Banerjee stands up from the table and shows , pumping his fist in the process, knowing that the tournament was over with his quad jacks. Rackley mucked his hand, claiming a full house and the two shook hands before Banerjee collected his winnings.
“I think with the blinds going up, there were a couple people that were patient, but people were getting hands to get it all in,” said Banerjee about the pace of the final table. “It was kind of like people were just putting it in and seeing who won. I was just somehow getting the right cards at the right time.”
While he claims he was getting cards at the right time, Banerjee credits the improvement of his mental game to his recent success.
“Anything can happen and [you need to] just be composed,” he said. “You lose the majority of your chips when you take a beat and right afterwards, so when I do lose hands, I know it’s just part of the game and to just move on to the next one.
“Basically, just handling your mindset is the biggest thing. Because online you see so many hands, it’s way easier to go into tilt online. So if you can control it there, you usually can control it [live] pretty good too.”
Along with the hardware and the cash, Banerjee earns 50 points and takes a very early lead in the Casino Championship race. The winner of that title, along with the winner of the main event earns an automatic bid into the Global Casino Championship (previously called the National Championship).
This is the first of 12 gold ring events on the WSOP Circuit schedule at the Bicycle Casino. The $365 Monster Stack No Limit Hold’em attracted 368 players. The total prize pool came to $110,400. The top 45 finishers were paid.
The tournament began Thursday, December 3 at 12 p.m. Day 1 wrapped following Level 21 with 23 players remaining. Day 2 resumed Friday at 1 p.m. Play narrowed to the nine-handed final table by 4:40 p.m. and action concluded around 6:30 p.m. making the total duration of the finale about two hours.
Complete results for this event can be found on WSOP.com.