Alex Jacob came to the ESPN televised table with a commanding 3.1 million chips. To understand just how big his stack was, realize he had nearly 35% of all the chips with 9 players remaining. As I said earlier today, Jacob was a massive favorite with all his chips and his previous final table experience. So he won right? Not so fast my friends...
Someone forgot to inform Ciarin O'Leary and Paul Evans to laydown and quit. The two came to the final table sixth and second in chips respectively. Fortunately for both of them, they kept battling and chipping away until they were 3-handed with Jacob. At which point, O'Leary proceeded to bust Jacob out in third place giving him a huge chip lead over Evans as heads-up play began. Jacob earned just over $282k for his efforts.
With a big chip lead, O'Leary kept the pressure on and was able to finish Evans off pretty quickly to earn his first WSOP bracelet. He also received the first prize check of $727k and change.
Paul Evans finished second and walked away with $450k. Not too shabby considering he turned $1500 into that amount in 72 hours, try scoring that type of rate of return in the investment markets.
-LA Mike for Pokerwire.com
