WSOPC Eastern Regional Championship 2010 Won By Chris Bell

Chris Bell has won the WSOPC Eastern Regional Championship 2010, after besting a field of 136 players over four days to secure the victory, and collect the $358,295 first place prize.
The forty year old poker pro from Raleigh, North Carolina has been cashing in at poker tournaments since 2003 and even picked up his first WSOP bracelet this year, in the $5,000 PLO Hi/Lo 8 Event.
With his latest victory Chris Bell has now taken his live tournament earnings to more than $2.5 million.
By the end of Day 1 of the competition the original 136 player field had been reduced to 93 hopefuls, which was further shortened to 27 players by the end of Day 2. It then took just six hours on Day 3 before the final table of nine had been reached, who then returned on Day 4 to battle it out for the title.
Starting the day as chip leader at the final table was Chris Klodnicki on 759k, followed by Chris Bell with 706k in chips, and Micah Raskin on 594k. Also at the table were Jason Burt on 579k, Ketan Pandya on 377k, Nick Mitchell on 332k, Todd Terry on 307k, Andy Frankenberger on 230k and Seth Fischer on 219k.
In a sign of the resilience of the final tablists, it was seven hours before the first player was eliminated. Seth Fischer had been reduced to a short stack of 143k before re-raising all-in from the big blind with Ac-8c to Jason Burt’s pocket jacks. With the board running K-9-8-2-3 Seth Fischer was out of the WSOPC event and collected $32,362 for his 9th place finish.
As the players began to fall, Andy Frankenberger finished in 6th ($66,758) after his A-2 came off second best to Chris Klodnicki A-K on an A-5-4-K-9 board. Eventually, Ketan Pandya finished in 3rd spot ($159,851) holding pocket tens to Chris Bell’s pocket queens and the heads-up phase of the tournament was then underway between Bell and Klodnicki.
The defining hand finally came after Bell was dealt 3c-3s to Klodnicki’s 6h-4d. The 6c-5d-3h flop guaranteed plenty of action and before long the two players were all-in. Alas for Klodnick the 9d-Qc turn and river did nothing to improve his hand and he finished the runner-up and collected $221,452 for his impressive run in the competition.
In the meantime, Chris Bell was crowned the WSOPC Eastern Regional Champion and collected $358,295 for his hard fought efforts.