When the cards were in the air on the last day of Event #20: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em, the chip counts were as follows:
Guess what? All players started and finished in the same positions! On the final hand, Ben Zamani caught heads-up opponent Natasha Barbour bluffing. Barbour shoved her stack with nothing but 10 high and Zamani called with three of a kind aces - in order words, it wasn't a hard decision to make for Zamani.
Ben Zamani, a 28-year-old poker professional born in Germany but residing in the U.S., received his first gold bracelet and $460,640 in prize money. This was his second final table at the World Series of Poker in less than one week after finishing second in Event #14, $1,500 no-limit hold'em shootout.
This event saw a field of 1,844 entries - an increase of more than 15 percent compared to last year. The total prize pool was $2,489,400 and paid the top 198 players. Notable in-the-money finishers include four-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Caufman Talley (10th, $26,337), two-time gold bracelet winners Andy Frankenberger (14th, $20,786) and Greg Mueller (102nd, $3,385), Chris Lindh (34th, $11,003), bracelet winner Taylor Paur (42nd, $9,111), six-time Circuit ring winner Valentin Vornicu (64th, $5,551), Matt Affleck (83rd, $4,231), Melanie Weisner (97th, $3,783), Joe Kuether (139th, $3,061) and Shannon Shorr (154th, $3,061).
Final table results:
1st: Ben Zamani - $460,640 + WSOP gold bracelet
2nd: Natasha Barbour - $284,911
3rd: Paul Ephremsen - $196,986
4th: Kevin MacPhee - $142,070
5th: Wenlong Jin - $103,857
6th: Garrett Beckman - $76,922
7th: Jared Griener - $57,729
8th: Oluwashola Akindele - $43,888
9th: Kevin Benoit - $33,781
EVENT FUN FACTS:
The final table featured no WSOP gold bracelet winners
The 1,844-player field was made up of 1,791 males and 53 females
