February 15th, 2020 (Tampa, FL) – Mark Zullo just joined the circle of World Series of Poker Circuit ring winners after taking down the $3,250 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Handed at the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa. He came out on top of the 104-player field to earn his first trophy ring and $89,150 in his first live victory.
“It feels great. I’ve been playing a long time and I’ve never won a live tournament, so that’s pretty cool,” Zullo said after his victory.
The 31-year old winner is primarily a cash game player and although he often plays tournaments at the World Series of Poker in Vegas, he doesn’t really follow the Circuit. In fact, this is only his second Circuit stop.
Day 2 began with 42 hopefuls returning to the tournament area to continue to battle it out and Zullo held a top ten stack. He kept grinding his stack up and ultimately secured a seat of the final table, sitting in the middle of the pack with an average stack.
There was plenty of tough competition among the final table participants but things really started going Zullo's way after he found kings and spiked a king against Gary Lucci's aces in an all in preflop situation, eliminating Lucci and taking over the chip lead. From thereon, the cards kept cooperating.
“The kings vs aces hand, that was pretty big, and from this hand down to the end I had most of the chips."
When the heads-up play started, Zullo found himself face-to-face with Circuit ring winner Brock Wilson. Although he had a slight lead, he was faced with a difficult final hurdle as Wilson put up a good fight, and managed to turn the tables at some point. That didn't stop Zullo from grabbing the title as he stayed focus and kept playing his best game to turn things back around.
“He kind of crushed me heads-up but I got lucky at the end. It feels good to stay in it, not lose your composure, keep playing, fight back.”
Final Table Action:
Prociak was the first casualty of the official final table. He jammed his final six big blinds with jack-seven suited and Jack Schwartz made the call with pocket fives on the button. Schwartz improved his hand to a set of fives, while Prociak was sent out in eighth place.
Gary Lucci took an exit in seventh place when he four-bet shoved aces for 55 big blinds and got snap-called by Mark Zullo who had kings. Lucci was ahead but the flop gave Zullo a set of kings and Lucci couldn’t recover.
A couple of hands later, Jake Schwartz scored a double knockout in a three-way all in preflop. Stephen Song was all in with ace-ten against Anthony Askey who held jacks and Schwartz who had pocket fives. The flop ran safe for Askey who was in the lead but the turn gave a full house to Schwartz and he eliminated Song in sixth place and Askey in fifth place.
Schwartz followed them to the payout desk soon after though when he jammed 22 big blinds with ace-three suited and got called by Zullo with king-queen. Zullo flopped a pair of kings, ending Schwartz’s tournament run in fourth place.
Not long after scoring a double, Faraz Jaka fell in third place when he called with ace-jack a shove from Zullo who had him dominated with ace-king suited.
Brock Wilson put up a good fight but was eliminated as the runner-up after Zullo moved all in with ace-queen and Wilson made the call with king-ten for his last 13 big blinds. Zullo improved his hand to a full house and Wilson fell one spot short from his second ring.
Final Table Results:
1st place: Mark Zullo - $89,150
2nd place: Brock Wilson - $55,099
3rd place: Faraz Jaka - $37,505
4th place: Jake Schwartz - $26,338
5th place: Anthony Askey - $19,100
6th place: Stephen Song - $14,319
7th place: Gary Lucci - $11,110
8th place: David Prociak - $8,933
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