Schwartz Closes Out WPT Jacksonville for Big Win
Poker pro Noah Schwartz played his big stack to perfection en route to winning his first WPT title in Jacksonville earlier today.
Schwartz will receive $402,970 for outlasting all 477 players in the tournament. The Florida-native entered the six-player final table with a massive stack of 6.2 million chips, just under 50% of the total chips in play.
The other big-name pro at the final table, former WPT winner Lee Markholt, surprisingly busted in sixth place just 20 minutes into the final table when he lost a huge race with ace-king against Schwartz’ pocket queens.
After eliminating Markholt, Schwartz had over 56% of the chips in play and threatened to run over the final table.
Finally Byron Kaverman slowed him down slightly by doubling with ace-jack against Schwartz’ pocket fours.
Schwartz recovered somewhat by busting Brian Senie in fifth but at this point Kaverman went on a tear and busted Hans Winzeler in fourth and Ryan Hartmann in third to enter heads-up play against Schwartz with the chip lead.
Schwartz Obliterates Kaverman Heads-Up
It took just four hands of heads-up play for Schwartz to re-take the chip lead.
Heads-up lasted less than 30 minutes and in the final hand of the tournament Kaverman moved all-in with T♣ 9♣ on a T♥ 9♠ 3♥ 4♠ board. Schwartz called him down with Q♠ T♠ for top-pair and the flush draw. The river was a queen and Schwartz won the tournament with a superior two-pair.
The entire final table only lasted 80 hands and was done in less than four hours.
Here are the complete final-table payouts:
- 1. Noah Schwartz - $402,970
- 2. Byron Kaverman - $236,592
- 3. Ryan Hartmann - $153,403
- 4. Hans Winzeler - $106,848
- 5. Brian Senie - $77,083
- 6. Lee Markholt - $61,819
