Michael Prendergast Wins Maiden Bracelet in Event #24: $600 Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack ($127,428)
Michael Prendergast of Chicago, Illinois, is the latest World Series of Poker bracelet winner after taking down Event #24: $600 Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack for his biggest-ever tournament score of $127,428. Prendergast earned the six-figure cash and his first bracelet after coming back from a significant chip deficit during heads-up play and defeating Jeffrey Barnes, who cashed for $78,755.
Prendergast entered the final table of eight as one of the shortest stacks but managed to triple up early on and ran his stack up from there.
Prendergast sent John Bunch home in eighth place when Bunch shoved his short stack and Prendergast had a full house by the end of the hand. Not long after, he eliminated Donnie Phan in sixth place when he had aces, which held after Phan shoved.
Event #24: $600 Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack Final Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Prendergast | United States | $127,428 |
| 2 | Jeffrey Barnes | United States | $78,755 |
| 3 | Jungwoong Park | Hong Kong | $57,386 |
| 4 | Joao Simao | Brazil | $42,272 |
| 5 | Daniel Wasserberg | United States | $31,485 |
| 6 | Donnie Phan | United States | $23,713 |
| 7 | Eric Polirer | United States | $18,062 |
| 8 | John Bunch | United States | $13,915 |
| 9 | Joseph Sanders | United States | $10,845 |
Heads-up play commenced when Barnes knocked out Jungwoong Park in a hand where Park was all-in before the flop and Barnes made a full house. Barnes had a 5:1 chip lead over Prendergast at one point but the eventual champion managed to double up multiple times and eventually took a small lead.
The final hand of the tournament occurred when Prendergast called off when facing a flop raise from his opponent. Prendergast was behind his opponent's pair of eights and had a flush draw that was no good, as his opponent had a better flush draw. However, Prendergast managed to make a pair of aces on the river and sent Barnes out in second place.
After the victory, Prendergast told PokerNews that he felt "absolutely wonderful" about winning a bracelet at his first-ever WSOP.
“I don’t pay a lot of tournaments," Prendergast said. "I’ve got a wife and kids.”
Prendergast, who dedicated the victory to his wife, said his strategy in the tournament was "to accumulate chips and survive when I had to," which included laying down a few big hands as a short stack when he knew he was behind.
“I decided to just do what I did the entire tournament and wait for a hand that I could hit the nuts with," he said about his late-stage strategy, also acknowledging that he “got the luck that I needed to win a tournament.”
Action of the Day
Day 2 got off to a rapid start that consisted of elimination after elimination for the first few levels of play. The action slowed down for a while and, after over six hours of play, the eight players left standing were moved to a feature final table.
Popular poker vlogger Andrew Neeme was eliminated in 31st place when he got in a three-way all-in with aces against kings and queens. It looked like the massive pot would be going Neeme’s way but Phan with the kings spiked a third one on the river. Neeme had him covered but was eliminated shortly after.
The tournament attracted a total of 1,572 entries and generated a prize pool of $801,720 with 236 places being paid. There were many notable players in the tournament who were not fortunate enough to make Day 2, among them Maria Ho, Shaun Deeb, Greg Raymer, David Williams and Barry Greenstein.
That wraps up coverage of Event #24: $600 Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack. Be sure to check for the PokerNews live reporting team's coverage of other WSOP events.