John Crncic Wins WSOPC River Rock For $286K

John Crncic has won the World Series of Poker Circuit River Rock Casino, after defeating a field of 1,032 players over four days to lift the title, and collect the  $286,382 first place prize.
Incredibly, the local amateur player won his seat through to the $1,125 buy-in WSOPC tournament via a $180 satellite a few days earlier, and following his remarkable win, Crncic said: “I’m afraid I’m going to wake up and its going to just be a dream. Its absolutely fantastic. This is much more than I hoped for.”
The WSOPC River Rock attracted a whole slew of pros to the event in Vancouver, Canada, looking for a piece of the  $1,548,000 prize pool. Amongst those notables failing to cash along the way was Jason Koon, Matt Affleck, David “Doc” Sands, Scott Clements, Gavin Smith, Huy Nguyen, Adam Levy, Terrence Chan, Matt Jarvis and Greg Mueller.
By the time the final table of nine had been reached, John Crncic was lying fourth in chips, and unfazed by the cameras. As he later explained: “It didn’t bother me at all. I had never been in a situation like this, yet it felt like I do it every week. It was great fun. I loved it.”
John Crncic (Ah-Kh) then scored his first knock-out by eliminating a short-stacked Michael Collins (J-7) in 8th for $35,449. A while later, A-K was also good enough for Crncic to dispatch Justin Ciolfitto (A-9) to the rail in 3rd ($131,580), thus heralding in the heads-up phase of the competition.
At this stage, Crncic held a 10.8m to 8.7m chip advantage over Ryan Biermann and Crncic continued to dictate the play until the final hand was player with  Biermann (A-Q) re-raising all-in for 6.8 million before being called by his opponent holding Ad-8d.
Unfortunately for Biermann the board rolled out A-8-2-6-K, relegating him to a runner-up finish worth $177,060, while John Crncic was declared the champion, and also received a ticket to the WSOPC National Championship in April.
Here are the final table payouts:
1 John Crncic    $286,382
2 Ryan Biermann    $177,060
3 Justin Ciolfitto $131,580
4 Mal Hagan    $98,917
5 Sonny Sekhon    $75,217
6 Calvin Anderson $57,864
7 Tyler St. Clair $45,031
8 Michael Collins $35,449
9 Glenn Sullivan $28,236