Andrew Moreno wins biggest poker event of the summer in Las Vegas
Source: cardschat
One month after deciding he’ll start focusing more on his tournament play; Andrew Moreno shipped the $10,000 buy-in Wynn Millions for $1,460,106.
The Wynn Millions, hosted at the Wynn in Las Vegas, promised a prize pool of at least $10 million. More than 1,300 players registered for the tournament, creating a pot that far surpassed its guarantee — $12,483,200.
Numerous big name pros such as Daniel Negreanu, Phil Laak, Johnny Chan, Erik Seidel, Bryn Kenney, and Alex Foxen had at least one buy-in in what is poker’s biggest event all summer. Many of those players failed to even cash. In Negreanu’s case, he cashed (114th place), but actually lost money as the $27,099 he received didn’t cover the four bullets he fired ($40,000).
But there were also a number of big name pros who ran deep, including Connor Drinan (82nd place for $34,708), Jason Koon (79th for $38,179), Robert Mizrachi (67th for $41,997), Foxen (57th for $46,406), Kristen Bicknell (53rd for $51,650), and Maria Ho (20th for $97,274). None of those great players, however, could find a way to stop Andrew Moreno, however.
Nine players returned to the Wynn for the final step in search of the $2 million first place prize. Each remaining player was guaranteed at least $202,765.
Lion Yiming Lee was the first out the door and took home $202,765. Joe Kuether would soon follow and received $240,302 for eighth place. Next to go was Jaime Cervantes, the seventh place finisher ($289,361), and then Philip Shing busted in sixth place, good for $360,140. Julian Milliard-Feral, the first of two non-Americans to bust at the final table, will head back to France with $456,629 and a fifth place finish in the $10 million guaranteed poker tournament.
After Salim Admon was eliminated in fourth place, which paid $619,160, the final three players agreed to a chop. Per the deal, 10% of the remaining prize pool was set aside for the winner ($313,000) and runner-up ($100,907) on top. Clayton Maguire, who was the chip leader at the time, was guaranteed at least $1,342,850. Toby Lewis, second in chips, received $1,235,204, and Andrew Moreno was guaranteed $1,147,105.
Lewis, from the United Kingdom, faded quickly and busted in third place when he lost a flip to Maguire. That set-up a heads-up match between Moreno and Maguire.
On the 24th hand of heads-up play, luck was on the side of Moreno, who called an all-in bet for 5.5 million with A-Q.
That’s a strong hand in heads-up play. Well, unless your opponent has A-K, which was the case in this hand. But the board ran out K-5-Q-Q-8, giving Moreno the pot and all 53,120,000 chips in play. He received a total of $1,460,106, while Maguire went home with $1,443,757.
For Moreno, it was his second tournament win in Las Vegas this summer. He also shipped the $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Ultimatestack at the Venetian Deepstack Championship Poker Series in June for $127,740.
