Saturday, December 12, 2015 10:59 PM Local Time
Congratulations to Mark Peckham, Winner of $365 Monster Stack No Limit Hold'em
Local realtor wins final preliminary event of the series and takes home $24,625 along with his first Circuit ring.
Los Angeles, CA. (December 13, 2015) — Mark Peckham earned his second five-figure score of his poker career and won his first Circuit ring on Saturday night by taking down the $365 Monster Stack No Limit Hold’em.
He topped a field of 357 over two days over No Limit Hold’em and defeated Mark Nasser heads-up to win the final preliminary event of the WSOP Circuit at the Bicycle Casino and take home $24,625.
“It feels great right now,” said Peckham after the win. “I can’t complain at all.”
Peckham doesn’t play a ton of live tournaments. Most of his time spent on the felt is playing both online cash games and tournaments, as well as live cash games in the Los Angeles area. Given his background, it isn’t surprising that his two major tournament scores both came in Monster Stack events.
Peckham’s first major score came at the 2014 WSOP $1,500 Monster Stack when he finished 19th for $50,202. The 30-year-old Upland, CA native feels the deeper stacks in the monster stack events give him an edge over the field.
“I think with all the cash games I play, I think that comes into play,” said Peckham. “I like the deeper stack and the idea of having more play throughout the tournament.”
Peckham came into the unofficial final table of 10 in the middle of the pack and quickly picked up a big hand.
“I got really lucky 10-handed,” said Peckham. “I picked up a kings and there was a raise and a re-raise. A guy moved all in and he had jacks, so that put me up to 1.5 million.”
Sending home Dmitry Kim in 10th place put Peckham near the top of the leaderboard with Wendy Freedman. He was able to ride that momentum all the way to a ring.
“I knew my ICM [Independent Chip Model] based on the table was really strong,” said Peckham. “I think Wendy had like 2.2 [million] at the time, so I just kind of sat there and let everybody else knock each other out and it wasn’t until the final five that I started making some moves.”
As the table got shorter, Peckham continued to chip up and he got heads-up with Mark Nasser. Their heads-up battle was a see-saw battle that watched the chip lead sway back and forth for over two hours before Peckham could finish the job.
“It was a grind with that guy,” said Peckham about Nasser. “I had him on the ropes like three times and all three times he came back.