My wife fractured and sprained her foot on Sunday, so I guess one might say that David Peters is having a better week than she is. On Monday, Peters won his third title of the 2021 U.S. Poker Open. That’s three wins in five days; he will end up with a quarter of the tournament crowns of the series. On top of that, he has jumped into the points lead for the U.S. Poker Open Championship the Golden Eagle trophy.
Peters had already won Event #7: $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em and Event #10: $10,000 Short Deck, but was one of the short stacks going into the final table of Event #11: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em. And though he was able to double-up through Vanessa Kade with five players remaining to take the chip lead, it was not a cruise to the finish line for Peters.
He soon eliminated Kade in fifth place and Jake Daniels in fourth, but three-handed action was a roller coaster. Peters doubled-up Ivan Zufic, whose chip stack had been all over the map, then Zufic handed the lead to Dan Shak. Peters ended up all-in against Shak in a race with A-K versus Tens and obviously survived.
After that, Peters was able to knock out Shak and go into heads-up play against Zufic. While many heads-up matches last a long time as the two players try to outsmart each other, this one lasted exactly one hand, as Peters ended up with pocket Tens and Zufic had Nines. Zufic raised to 475,000 and Peters made the call, bringing on a flop of 3-8-Q. Zufic fired again for 375,000 and Peters called again. Peters hit a Ten on the turn, but both players checked. The river brought a 4 and Zufic checked, prompting Peters to move all-in. Zufic called for his remaining 1.2 million chips and that was it. Peters had his third U.S. Poker Open title and $465,750.
With the victory, Peters catapulted himself into first place on the U.S. Poker Open leaderboard. His 646 total points are well ahead of Ali Imsirovic’s 483. The winner of the leaderboard after all 12 events will receive $50,000.
Despite the significant margin, one player can still overtake Peters. Sam Soverel, even though he isn’t even in the top ten, could leap into first place with a win in the final event on Tuesday. It won’t be easy, though, as he is the shortest stack at the six-handed final table and the only player with under a million chips.
Cover photo courtesy of PokerGO.com
