WSOPC Tunica 2011 Won By Sam Barnhart
February 16, 2011 8:49 amSam Barnhart has won the 2011 WSOPC Tunica Main Event, after defeating a field of 480 players over three days to lift the title, and collect the $148,612 first place prize.
In a change from last years $5,150 entry fee which attracted just 96 players, the now reduced $1,600 buy-in saw a much larger field turn out for the Main Event to produce a prize pool of $698,400.
However, by the end of Day 1 just 111 hopefuls remained, which was further reduced to a final table of nine after the completion of Day 2.
The chip leader going into the final day’s play was John Nguyen on a 2.3m stack, followed by Kurt Jewell on 1.85m and Mary Harden on 1.28m. Also at the table were Jesse White (923k), Brian Burney (901k), Sam Barnhart (758k), John Holley (561k), Preston Durden (497k), and Marco Palacios on 440k.
First to exit the final table was John Holley in 9th ($13,789), followed by Kurt Jewell in 8th ($17,328) after shoving with As-6s against Barnhart’s Ad-Kd.
Preston Derden then found himself consigned to the rail in 7th ($22,084) after coming up against his opponent’s pocket aces. Sam Barnhar (A-J) then eliminated beginning of the day chip leader John Nguyen (4-4) in 6th ($28,547), before then picking up pocket aces to dispatch Marco Palacios in 5th ($37,422).
Brian Burney collected $49,759 for a 4th place finish, while Mary Harden was the 3rd place finisher ($67,122) holding two pair on a 5-5-4-8-7 board to Barnhart’s 5-8 full house.
Half an hour into heads-up play between Jesse White and Sam Barnhar, White re-raised his opponent all-in holding Jc-10c only to see the bad news that Barnhar was sitting on pocket kings. The low board brought no relief to Jesse White, who walked away with $91,881 for his runner-up finish, while Sam Barnhar was crowned the WSOPC Tunica Main Event champion and picked up the winners ring and $148,612 for his hard fought efforts.