When the final table at the WSOP Circuit Lumiere Place Main Event started, the buzz around was whether Robert ‘Uncle Krunk’ Panitch will be available to beat fatigue and win his second Circuit Ring. He proved his age and critics wrong by winning a marathon heads up encounter of more than 10 hours against Robert Edelstein.
While the final table of 9 had been formed on Day 2 but play went on to eliminate five players and the final 4 had to wait till Day 3 dawned. Coming into Day 3, Uncle Krunk was the chip leader with just over 3 million chips. Millard Hale was second with 2.1 million, Robert Edelstein was third with 1.67 million, and Peter Nigh was fourth with 1.5 million.
Hale was the first to exit when play begun when his AQ was out-kicked by Panitch’s AK. Peter Nigh also exit his short stack in third place to Panitch to leave the latter with a huge chip lead over Edelstein. But no one had anticipated that the heads up battle would be such a tough one. A FT which had taken 3 hours to come down from 9 to 2 then took 10 hours to go from 2 players to a champion. Both the finalists hailing from Chicago then exchanged too many chips and small pots before Panitch finally overcame to win his second WSOP Circuit Ring.
From a total of 416 for the Main Event at St. Louis, 45 finished in the money for the prize pool of $624,000. Notable poker players finishing ITM included WSOP bracelet holder James Mackey (44th), Dan Lowery (42nd), DJ MacKinnon (37th), Jacob Bazeley (35th), three-time ring winner Valentin Vornicu (31st), Michael Hahn (28th), Allen Kessler (25th), two-time ring winner Ben Grise (15th), and two-time ring winner John Holley (13th).
Here are the final table results from the Lumière Place Casino WSOP Circuit Main Event:
2nd – Robert Edelstein – $84,833
3rd – Peter Nigh – $61,988
4th – Millard Hale – $46,026
5th – Nicholas Weber – $34,707
6th – Danny Steinberg – $26,564
7th – Michael Holm – $20,629
8th – Jonathan Gray – $16,249