On Saturday night at the 2013 World Series of Poker, Jonathan Taylor was able to outlast one of the larger fields of this year’s schedule (1819 players) in winning his first WSOP bracelet in Event #14, the latest $1500 No Limit Hold’em tournament.
Taylor was only one of two men who were over the one million chip mark at the start of the day. The second, Hiren “Sunny” Patel, was in the lead with his 1.51 million in chips over Taylor’s 1.222 million. Among the other fourteen men left were Russell Crane, Blake Bohn and Chris Hunichen, who was in the hunt for his second final table of the 2013 WSOP (his first came in the “Millionaire Maker”).
After a slight delay in the start of the tournament, the players were deliberate in their actions and there was little movement in the chip counts. With that said, it would only take two hours to eliminate the five men – Benjamin Dobson, Hunichen, Morgan Machina, Daniel Paska and Russell Crane – in fourteenth through tenth places to set up the final table.
Taylor had pulled into the lead at the start of the final table, with over two million chips, while he and Patel (1.854 million) still remained over the one million mark. Among the other seven players, Jed Hoffman had the best stack at only 883K, Patrick Kubat was sitting with 859K and Bohn held 738K.
Taylor watched as the table decimated itself in front of him. Patel, who struggled at the start of the final table, was able to get Joseph Pergola in ninth place and, after taking another big pot against Dan Gannon, moved back into the lead over Taylor. Gannon would be taken out in eighth place and, after Bohn took a nice chunk of chips out of Patel, Taylor was back in the lead.
After Hoffman was taken out by Bohn when Bohn’s A-K hit on the turn against Hoffman’s pocket Queens, the table began to get more aggressive. Patel eliminated Kubat in sixth place, his J-10 making a straight on the river to best Kubat’s pocket fives, and Tommy Vu began to try to make some moves up the leaderboard with several all-in moves. He would work that move three times, getting a double up on one of them against Bohn, before the fourth try against Taylor didn’t work. Vu would flop top two pair on a J-9-4 board and, after moving all in, saw Taylor snap-call and table pocket nines against him. When he couldn’t find another Jack on the turn or river, Vu was out in fifth place.
Down to four handed, Taylor had been able to work his way out to over a million chip lead over Bohn, while Hunter Frey sat another million chips back and Patel was on the short stack. He would lose that to Taylor after calling Taylor’s all in. Patel had made the right move, his A-J besting Taylor’s K-9 pre-flop, but a nine on the turn switched the fortunes of the two men. When Patel couldn’t find an Ace or Jack on the river, he was out in fourth place.
The remaining three men would take a dinner break and, following the sustenance, Taylor would come out on the attack. Ten hands after dinner, Taylor would knock out Frey in third place to take a 2.5 million chip advantage to heads up play against Bohn and, after another 28 hands of heads up action, would earn the bracelet by eliminating Bohn when his K-9 caught against Bohn’s A-5.
1. Jonathan Taylor (Phil Campbell, AL), $454,424
2. Blake Bohn (Burnsville, MN), $281,049
3. Hunter Frey (Houston, TX), $194,315
4. Hiren Patel (Carol Stream, IL), $140,143
5. Tommy Vu (Las Vegas, NV), $102,449
6. Patrick Kubat (Berlin, Germany), $75,879
7. Jed Hoffman (Reno, NV), $56,946
8. Dan Gannon (Las Vegas, NV), $43,293
9. Joseph Pergola (Henderson, NV), $33,323
