Ted Gillis Wins Event #19: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em ($514,027)
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Ted Gillis started out this day third in chips with about 1.1 million with some real talent to contend with in the final 12. It took us a few hours to get down to an official final table of nine, but when we got there players started falling quickly. At the end of the day, Gillis was the man with his hands on the WSOP gold bracelet and the top prize of $514,027.
Gillis is new on the tournament scene. He has a single WSOP cash prior to this one — a small cash in an event just like this one last summer. His lifetime earnings are just $10,538 ... until today. From Houston, Texas, Gillis has just earned himself some truly life-changing money.
The bulk of Gillis' chips came to him late in the day. He coasted through the final table at about the middle of the pack, but by the time he knocked out [Removed:480] in third place, Gillis had gained about two thirds of the chips in play to enter heads-up play. Just 27 hands later and Gillis had claimed his victory.
Day 1 on Saturday received 2,086 total entries to create a prize pool of $2,816,100. 233 players survived the initial day and it was only half an hour into Day 2 that 216 players made it in the money. 10 levels later and only 12 players remained to bag up chips for the final time in the event.
It was an event of double knockouts. 14th- and 13th-place finishers Matt Ditonto and Max Silver were both eliminated in the same hand. Then, on Day 3, 12th- and 11th-place finishers Ron Mcmillen and Gregg Merkow both met their demise when they ran into John Hennigan's kings. Not to miss out on the trend, Dylan Thomassie and Edison Shields (ninth and eighth) both exited the tournament at the same time when Divkovic turned quad kings.
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