Ring Event #10: $580 No-Limit Hold'em

Event #10
No-Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $500 (+$80)
Total Entries: 124
Prize Pool: $62,000

Joshua Turner has now won two gold rings in back-to-back Circuit seasons.

Council Bluffs, Iowa (April 8, 2016) -- The theme of the 2016 Council Bluffs Circuit series has been multiple gold ring winners winning more gold rings. Last week Mark Fink won his fourth gold ring in the bounty event. Duane Gerleman followed that up by winning his third gold ring in the re-entry event. Just last night Maurice Hawkins won his fifth gold ring in the monster stack event and now Joshua Turner has just won his fourth career gold ring by defeating 124 players in Event #10 - $580 No-Limit Hold'em.

Turner has been one of the strongest players on the Circuit in the last two years. All four of Turner's gold rings have come in the past two Circuit seasons. He has won two gold rings this season and he won two gold rings last season. Turner used to be cash player, but started focusing more on tournaments a couple of years ago.

"I was grinding cash mainly, solely. Some of my friends had rings and it just got me wanting to get some rings," said Turner. "It's been fun, I like traveling around."

Now Turner is almost exclusively a tournament player. Turner played this event with his main goal to score a cash and add at least 10 points to his Global Casino Championship season total. He had 125 points coming in and the projected cut line was right around 135 points. Once he secured 10 points by making it to the top 11 in the tournament, he felt like his seat in the 2016 Global Casino Championship was locked up and he shifted his entire focus to winning the tournament.

According to Turner, he didn't see many good hands last night at the beginning of the final table. He made it to Day 2 with four players remaining, but he was the short stack. He came into Day 2 with his only focus being to win the tournament. His win or go home mentality helped propel him to his fourth WSOP Circuit victory.

Turner will be resting up the next couple of months to get ready for a full schedule of events at the 2016 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. He plans to be there the entire series and play mostly mixed events.

"I had a lot of success last year in the mixed events. I do well in no-limit, I like no-limit, but the fields are so big. I feel there is a lot of variance and there is some edge in mixed limit games. My schedule is just going to be packed with mixed limits," said Turner.

Turner said that he will play some no-limit events and definitely play the Main Event too.

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Event #10 was the tenth of 12 gold ring events on the WSOP Circuit schedule at the Horseshoe Council Bluffs series. The $580 No-Limit Hold'em tournament attracted 124 players generating a $62,000 prize pool. The top 15 players were paid.

Day 1 began Thursday at 12 p.m. and lasted 21 levels. Day 2 began Friday at 2 p.m. with four players remaining. The tournament concluded at about 4:00 p.m. Friday at the beginning of Level 24.

Final table results:

1st: Joshua Turner - $17,359 + Circuit gold ring
2nd: Shaun Burnett - $10,730
3rd: Heath Hekrdle - $7,745
4th: Mina Greco - $5,691
5th: Paula Halata - $4,254
6th: Bill Donnelly - $3,235
7th: David Lopez - $2,500
8th: James Devaney - $1,964
9th: Patricia Bott - $1,568

Shaun Burnett (pictured) finished runner-up to Josh Turner for $10,730. This was Burnett's second runner-up finish of the series. He finished second in Event #8 - $365 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better on Wednesday and now he sits in second place in the Casino Championship standings with two events remaining.

Mina Greco was the first player eliminated on Day 2 of the tournament. She earned $5,691 for her 4th place finish. This marked Greco's seventh WSOP cash of 2016 and third final table.