2013 WSOP Event 36
Sunday June 23,2013 : GOLD FOR BULGARIA AT WORLD SERIES OF POKER
Naydenov bests a field of 1,193 in NLHE Shootout
The well respected Bulgarian poker pro Simeon "IamBuddhaa" Naydenov (25) won his first WSOP bracelet and chalked up Bulgaria's second WSOP victory in as many years over the weekend when he won event 36 – the $1,500 buy-in NLHE Shootout, besting a field of 1,193 to claim gold and the winner's check for $326,440.
The former international finance graduate turned poker pro has eight WSOP cashes to his credit – two of them this series – and his latest win is his biggest career cash yet, taking his earnings online and in live tournaments close to a million dollars.
He is the first Bulgarian poker player to be sponsored by Pokerstars, and in 2010 he won Unibet Open Player of the Year accolade.
Naydenov faced Jake Schwartz in the heads up, which started around hand 148 of the final table, with the Bulgarian holding a 3 to 1 chip lead over the only other man still standing. It was too high a hill for Schwartz to climb, and ten hands later it was all over, with Schwartz taking the runner-up prize of $202,035.
The other final tablers scored as follows:
3 Andrew Kloc $126,250
4 Tobias Wenker $91,740
5 Nacho Barbero $67,732
6 Mike Watson $50,774
7 Jan Kropacek $38,621
8 Salman Behbehani $29,771
9 Noah Bronstein $23,259
The only other bracelet claim over the weekend was by Michael Moore’s, who took home the main prize of $211,743 and his first WSOP bracelet after surviving a competitive field of 169 players in event 37 – a $5,000 buy-in Limit Hold'Em competition.
By Day 3 the field was down to a seriously star-heavy final table that comprised Moore and Gabriel Nassif, Ronnie Bardah, Brian Aleksa, Todd Witteles, Dom Denotaristefani, Ben Yu, Greg Mueller and Justin Bonomo.
When Bardah was eliminated by Gabriel Nassif in third for $94,793, the stage was set for a Nassif vs. Moore heads up, with the former enjoying an almost one million chip lead, which Moore ground down to finally overtake his opponent and claim the lead in a long and gruelling tussle between two skilled and determined players.
Nassif was unable to rein Moore back in, and on hand 334 the final confrontation saw Moore bust his opponent, sending him home with a consolatory second placing check for $130,852.
