Held from February 20 to March 2, the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Horseshoe Hammond featured several marquee events. One of the last events of the series was its $1,700 Main Event that attracted a total of 989 entries, easily crushing the $1,000,000 guarantee to create a final prize pool of $1,498,335, which was shared by the top 149 players. The largest share of the prizepool finally went to the Indian-origin player Shiva Dudani. The 34-year-old player earned $258,078, along with his second WSOPC ring. His previous win came about 10 years ago in a $300 buy-in PLO event.
The final day saw 13 players returning to battle it out for the title with Evan Bethyo sitting in pole position. Dudani began with the 13th largest stack but went on to chip-up nicely to enter the unofficial 10-handed table with the third largest stack. He started off well at the final table, with his pocket kings beating pocket nines of Hussain Sajwani who exited in 8th place. His next victim was the start-of-the day chip leader Evan Bethyo who finished 6th after his Kx Jx lost to Dudani’s Ah 10h. Exiting in 5th place was Sachin Bhargava, whose J-10 lost against pocket sixes of Bryan Skreens.
Dudani scored his third elimination when his AQ beat AJ of Patrick Steele who finished 4th in the tournament. After Bryan Skreens exiting in 3rd place, Dudani took a slight lead into heads-up against Casey Carroll. The latter fought well but eventually finished runner-up. The last hand saw Dudani with J-10 and Carrol with A-Q. The board ran out Q-J-J-7-4, giving the title to Dudani.
Final Table Payouts
- Shiva Dudani – $258,078
- Casey Carroll – $159,494
- Bryan Skreens – $119,606
- Patrick Steele – $90,543
- Sachin Bhargava – $69,197
- Evan Bethyo – $53,394
- Firas Sadou – $41,602
- Hussain Sajwani – $32,732
- Nicola Ditrapani – $26,010
- Voytek Glab – $20,876