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).
