The first $1,000 event of the 2012 World Series of Poker (WSOP), a “low” buy-in tournament formerly dubbed the “Stimulus Special,” concluded last night. It doesn’t have that fun name anymore, but Event #21: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em was certainly fun for Belgium’s Michael Gathy, who defeated almost 2,800 opponents en route to his first WSOP bracelet and a $440,820 payday.
Gathy only has a total of five cashes in live tournaments, but he has made the most of them. His first came in September of last year when he placed second in the European Short-Handed Poker Championship Main Event, earning $74,174. In December, he won the Main Event of the Belgian Poker Series Grand Final, good for $233,645. Of course, last night’s win trumps them both and takes his career winnings up over three-quarters of a million dollars.
Yesterday’s action began with 17 players remaining in the field and by the time it got down to the final table, Gathy was in the top half of the standings with 783,000 chips. There were three distinct tiers to begin the final table, as the top two – Noah Vaillancourt and Jamie Armstrong – had well over 2 million chips each. Then came Jean-Louis Santoni, Gathy, and Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin, all over 700,000. After them, none of the bottom four had more than 440,000 chips.
About an hour into play, it looked like it was over for Gathy, as he doubled-up Baldwin and fell to just 175,000 chips. He was crippled. But he wasn’t out. An hour later, he was up to 600,000. Then 1.4 million. 1.6 million by dinner.
When heads-up rolled around, Michael Gathy had 3.7 million chips. Remember, he was down to 175,000 at the final table. He still had ground to make up, though, as Jamie Armstrong had him covered by 900,000 chips. During the one-on-one contest, Gathy fell back again, dropping to 1.6 million, then doubling-up, then falling again to 1.8 million. That was bottom for him, though, as he quickly doubled to almost pull even with Armstrong and then proceeded to steal enough blinds to take the lead.
The match was still close – Gathy had about a million chip lead – when it came to an abrupt end. Armstrong raised pre-flop to 250,000, Gathy three-bet to 600,000, and Armstrong decided that was as good a time as any to move all of his chips into the middle of the table. Gathy made the call and it was on. Armstrong had made his move with 9♣-9♠ and had to be crushed to see that Gathy did him one better, holding T♣-T♠. The community cards did nothing to even give Armstrong any hope and Michael Gathy was the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em champion.
2012 WSOP Event #21: $1,000 Limit No-Limit Hold’em – Final Table Results
1. Michael Gathy – $440,820
2. Jamie Armstrong – $273,776
3. Noah Vaillancourt – $193,089
4. John Esposito – $139,457
5. Eric Baldwin – $101,948
6. Eric Davis – $75,422
7. Jean-Louis Santoni – $56,453
8. Jason Manggunio – $42,749
9. Joshua Field – $32,748
