Cord Garcia Wins WSOP Colossus
Thursday June 4,2015 : TEXAN WINS COLOSSUS POKER EVENT
After six days of tough, competitive poker Houston grinder Cord Garcia claims the $638,880 main prize.
It's taken six days of hard, take-no-prisoners poker to whittle a record field of 22,374 entries in the $565 buy-in Colossus event at the World Series of Poker down to just one man, and on Wednesday that man was 25-year-old Houston, Texas grinder Cord Garcia.
At $638,880 the pay day – and his maiden winner's bracelet – far eclipsed his previous best win of around $84,000 as he fought his way through to the final table, re-entering the competition on two occasions, and then prevailed in the heads up against Bradley McFarland.
Re-entry levels were high, and the actual unique player count in the event was 14,284, who created a massive $11,187,000 prize pool – way beyond the $5 million guarantee.
The final table was led by Aditya Prasetyo with as huge chip advantage, but he was unable to maintain his momentum and eventually had to be satisfied with a 6th placing worth $140,956.
All but one of the final table survivors were from the USA, the exception being Belgian player Kenny Hallaert….and all were experienced enough to have played major WSOP tourneys before.
Competing around the televised final table were Garcia and McFarland, Ray Henson, Paul Lentz, Kenny Hallaert, Aditya Prasetyo, Gary Simms, David Farber and Anthony Blanda…and the last three were eliminated within the first two hours.
Although originally one of the short stacks at the table, Garcia worked his way up through the pack to end in the heads up against McFarland, with the two survivors on a more or less even footing.
However, within the next 18 hands Garcia was able to gain the upper hand and dispatch McFarland in the runner up place with $386,253.
The other final tablers took home very respectable pay checks:
3 Ray Henson $308,761
4 Paul Lentz $182,348
5 Kenny Hallaert $182,348
6 Aditya Prasetyo $140,956
7 Gary Simms $109,362
8 David Farber $87,817
9 Anthony Blanda $67,681
Commenting on the controversy over the flat pay-out structure for the massive event (see previous InfoPowa report), Garcia said he thought it was a good format, giving more people a chance to earn decent prizes.
"It was good for poker," he said. "There's something to this. Market a tournament well and get more people outside of poker into poker and its always good for the game. I was really impressed with the turnout, and the fact there was a lot of average, normal people taking a shot at a poker tournament. That's what its all about. That's what keeps this game alive.”
Players from ninety eight different nations played in the inaugural Colossus, an endorsement of its international appeal.
