On Wednesday, the final 16 of 2,525 players returned to the poker tables for Day 3 of Event #56: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em. Five players were sent packing during the first two levels of play and Bastian Fischer finished eleventh soon after.
The two tables then became an unofficial final table of 10 players until Matt Salsberg shoved with A
K on the board 610
J into the 10
10 of Raymond Henson. The last two cards were to no help for Mr. Salsberg who finished in 10th place for $23,202.
Once the cards were in the air on the official final table of 9 players, the action slowed down dramatically and stacks were evenly distributed. Well, one by one they were eventually eliminated until heads-up play began. Although the final table had moved extremely slow most of the day, it only took 14 hands of play for Mike Kachan, a 30-year-old from Woodbury, Minnesota who came to Las Vegas to play in the Main Event but decided to hop into this event in the last minute, to eliminate Jeff Blenkarn to claim his first gold bracelet and $403,483 in prize money!
"It feels great. It was a tough ride, but it was well worth it. I am really thankful for all of the people I have behind me," Kachan said afterr the big win. "When the tournament started, I was in northern Utah driving in and got here with 20 [big blinds]. The rest was history I guess."
Here is how the final hand was played out:
Mike Kachan opened for 250k and Jeff Blenkarn thought for a while before calling.
The flop rolled out 9J5
. Blenkarn checked and Kachan bet 215. Blenkarn then raised to 615,00. Kachan made the call.
The turn was the 6 and Blenkarn shoved his remaining stack. Kachan instantly called and the cards were turned over.
Blenkarn had Q9 and Kachan held J6. The river card was the 10 - no help to Blenkarn who had been eliminated in second place for $250k.
Final table results:
1st: Mike Kachan - $403,483
2nd: Jeff Blenkarn - $250,815
3rd: Eric Shanks - $177,527
4th: Andrew Egan - $128,032
5th: Viktor Skoldstedt - $93,490
6th: Neo Hoang - $69,084
7th: Steve Gross - $51,676
8th: Richard Milne - $39,109
9th: Raymond Henson - $29,951
