Brandon Barnette Wins 2015 WSOP Casino Employee Event

Friday May 29,2015 :  BARNETTE IS THIS YEAR'S CASINO EMPLOYEE POKER CHAMP AT W.S.O.P.
 
First event of the 46th World Series of Poker is a win for Californian poker supervisor.
 
Pechanga Casino poker supervisor Brandon Barnette (29) has won the first event in this year's World Series of Poker, the $565 buy-in Casino Employees NLHE competition, after besting a field of 687 other hopefuls who generated a prize pool of $344,000.
 
His reward is a prize of $75,704 and a prestigious WSOP gold winner's bracelet.
 
The entry field was considerably smaller than the same event last year, when there were 876 registrations.
 
It was a nostalgic return to Las Vegas for Barnette, who was at one stage in his career a WSOP dealer.
 
In the heads up Thursday night local time Barnette tangled with another experienced dealer, Greg Seiden, soon finding his 3 to 1 chip advantage whittled down by a tough and skillful opponent. But Barnette fought back with disciplined play and well timed aggression to regain the lead and ultimately send Seiden to the exit and a runner up prize of $46,735.
 
Other final table pay-outs were:
 
Zachary Seufert  $30,382
Gary Kochalka  $22,315
Michael Kahn  $16,622
Aiping Xue  $12,542
Thomas McFadden  $9,573
Phi Tran  $7,389
Chris Jones  $5,762