Monroe wins $208,184, his third ring and a seat into the GCC with a win in the final main event of the season
May 21, 2018 (New Orleans, LA) - Jerry Monroe earned one of the final two automatic berths into the 2018 Global Casino Championship on Monday evening. By winning the final main event of the season, Monroe earned a spot in the season-ending bracelet event.
The 41-year-old from Georgia defeated Darren Martin to finish off the 677-entry field in the Harrah’s New Orleans main event. Monroe earned $208,184 for his third career ring and his second main event title.
“Yeah, it validates it,” said Monroe about whether a third ring proves that his first two wins weren’t a fluke. “I usually don’t play the whole series out like I did this time. I usually come in for the last event on the last flight and I don’t usually get warmed up.”
Monroe was a former superintendent at a factory, but when the factory left town, he turned to real estate to make his living. He takes care of a bunch of rental properties, which keeps him busy and keeps him from playing entire series. Even when he is able to take some time and play a Circuit main event, it’s almost exclusively at a series run in the southeastern region of the country.
As a fan of the city of New Orleans, however, Monroe figured it was worth losing some time on the job to stay for the entire duration.
“This stop, I really like it,” said Monroe. “If you bust out, there’s so much to do and the city is so great. I just stay the whole time.”
Aside from enjoying the city, the extra time spent at the table during preliminary events learning opponents was a huge advantage for someone who usually just comes in for one event. He was able to study what would eventually be future opponents and figure out how to exploit them.
It comes in especially handy for someone that can go long stretches of time without getting to spend time on the felt.
“You start knowing everybody in the room, you know, playing all week,” said Monroe. “Because you get comfortable. I hadn’t played since last… I won’t play for a month or two at a time and I’ll come in cold. So, this is the only place where I really get to get warmed up.”
Monroe’s last ring came in a $1,125 no-limit hold’em event in New Orleans, but his first came in the IP Biloxi main event in 2011. For Monroe, the main event wins are a little more special to him because of the level of competition he faced off against in the bigger buy-ins.
“It is [more special],” said Monroe. “The field is stronger in the main event than in the regular fields, so it’s a good accomplishment. I feel good about it. I enjoyed it.”
The final day of play started with 13 players battling for one of the final rings of the season, but just 15 minutes into the day, they were already redrawing for seats at the final table.
The beginning of the final table was all about John Skinner and Martin, the eventual runner-up. The two were winning of the majority of the pots, and many of them were big ones at that. Skinner showed a propensity to move all in at any time and put people to the test for their entire stack, regardless of how big the pot was.
Skinner lived and died with that mantra. During five-handed play, he ran a queen-high straight into Martin’s king-high straight, which gave Martin about 60% of the chips in play. Josh Donato was eliminated by Martin in fifth and Skinner hit the rail in fourth place, also at the hands of Martin.
That put Monroe at the bottom of the chip counts at the outset of three-handed play. He was able to survive long enough to double up through Mike Cohen, and then eliminate Cohen in third. That gave Monroe the heads-up match he was anticipating.
“I thought it was a really big uphill battle,” said Monroe. “I did think it would be me and Darren at the end since he was the most accomplished player out of the 13 that came back today. I felt like it would be mand him when it got down to two and it did end up being me and him.”
Unfortunately for Monroe, Martin started the heads-up battled with about 75% of the chips in play, giving him about a 3-to-1 chip lead.
Monroe came out of the gates strong and quickly put a dent into Martin’s lead. He went on a streak of winning eight hands in a row to move him even in chips and then moved into the lead after he got three streets of value with top and bottom pair against bottom two pair.
From there, he leaned on Martin until he broke. It was all a part of Monroe’s plan for heads-up play.
“I felt like he was playing the last hour real conservative,” said Monroe. “So, I tried to play real aggressive over the first hour to try and get the stacks even. And then I backed off and played poker a bit. I knew he was a bit conservative and didn’t want to lose chips, so I took advantage of that.”
Final Table Results:
1st: Jerry Monroe - $208,184
2nd: Darren Martin - $128,816
3rd: Michael Cohen - $94,482
4th: John Skinner - $70,262
5th: Justin Donato - $52,958
6th: Hugh Cullen - $40,477
7th: Benjamin Mintz - $31,298
8th: Scott Horvath - $24,354
9th: Donnell Dais - $19,477
Relive the action with the live updates
Full Results