Big Stax 500: Recap

The Big Stax 500 ended late last night, and it was Izzet Burak Temel ($69,942), James Anderson ($63,240), and Chris Csik ($50,554) who agreed to chop the remaining prize pool.  James Anderson became the first players to reach three Big Stax final tables, while Temel and Csik get their second big scores of their career.

This installment of the Big Stax 500 saw it's largest field ever, with 852 entries over the three starting days.  It followed a record showing in the Big Stax 300, and leads into the Big Stax 1500 later this week.  Of the 852 entries,  149 came back for Day 2 on Sunday and played down to the conclusion of Level 23.

Day 3 started with 23 players, including fan favorite Nancy Martin (Washington Crossing, PA) and Sean Wright (Robbinsville, NJ).  Wright was one of nine players to buy into the event Sunday morning (Day 2) with eight big blinds, and he parlayed that into a 22nd place finish ($3,048).  Falling short of the final table was the defending champ of this event, Ilya Ekshtut (19th place - $3,424), and Greg Himmelbrand (13th place - $4,385).  The final table was reached shortly before dinner, and included a handful seasoned tournament pros.

Once Asher Connif (Brooklyn, NY) was eliminated in 4th place, the three players began discussing a deal, and it didn't take long to agree to an ICM chop.  An interesting thing to note is that each of the players who were part of the chop were in the tournament for one bullet.  Each player mentioned that they will be back for the Big Stax 1500, which begins this Thursday at 11:00am (March 6).