Milen Stefanov became the latest World Poker Tour Champion as he won the WPT Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open $3,500 Main Event on Wednesday in Hollywood, Florida. The Bulgarian poker player outlasted a record field of 988 entries to take home his career-best score of $545,070.
The 988 entries coming across two starting days of the event helped the tournament to easily surpass its $2,000,000 guaranteed prize pool and eventually generate a hefty $3,161,600 in new prizepool, which was shared by the top 124 players. Some notables to finish in the money were Scott Clements, Anthony Zinno, Julien Martini, James Calderaro, Matt Glantz, Aaron Mermelstein, etc.
The money bubble burst late on Day 2 in WSOPC Coco ring winner Roberto Bendeck. Only 65 players could advance to Day 3 play and that number further came down to 17 for Day 4. Milen Stefanov entered Day 4 with the fourth largest stack. He continued his impressive play, eventually putting himself in great shape for Wednesday’s final table. Stefanov got a huge double-up against Francis Anderson. Both players got their chips in with A-K off-suit. Four hearts ran out on the board. Stefanov who held the ace of hearts eventually won his most crucial hand prior to the final table.
To make things even worse for Anderson, Stefanov then beat him with pocket sevens holding against K-Q. Anderson became the first elimination from the final table, going out in 6th place. The next elimination came in two hours and it was Cesar Fuentes who exited in 5th place. Following him in 4th place was Roman Korenev who ran into Stefanov’s aces. Later, David Novosel’s bustout in the 3rd place set the heads-up for the title between Germany’s Fabian Gumz and Bulgaria’s Stefanov.
Stefanov held a 5:1 chip advantage going into heads-up against Fabian Gumz. While the latter managed to take a small lead after two big double-ups, Stefanov came back strongly and finished it off, eventually winning the coveted title for $545,070*. The runner-up Gumz settled for $353,380.
Final Table Results
- Milen Stefanov $545,070
- Fabian Gumz $353,380
- David Novosel $260,845
- Roman Korenev $194,605
- Cesar Fuentes $146,760
- Francis Anderson $111,895