Home / Poker News September 2011 / EPL Main Event #2 – Mike McDonald Wins
EPL Main Event #2 – Mike McDonald Wins
Posted by: Mark Baldwing - Mon, 2011-09-12 10:06
The Epic Poker League’s second Main Event saw its final table convene on its last day of action. The 8-handed official final table was quite an impressive sight indeed. Besides Mike McDonald, the eventual winner, a whole slew of ‘name’ players lined up for the final stretch of the tournament: Dutch Boyd, Erik Seidel, Sean Getzwiller, Isaac Baron, Nam Le and David Steicke all played.
The action got off to a quick start: the first 4 victims were disposed of relatively quickly.
Dutch Boyd was the first one who picked up a hand on which he deemed worthy to stake his tournament life: pocket Js. Unfortunately for him, Erik Seidel had pocket rockets in the very same hand and thus first blood was drawn.
Boyd was followed to the rail by Sean Getzwiller. Because he reached the final tables of both EPL Main Events, Getzwiller will get to buy into the next EPL event, thanks to the temporary EPL card that he earned.
Isaac Baron hit the rail next. After his elimination, things slowed down a bit, but – as soon as Nam Le was bounced on the 46th hand, they pretty much ground to a halt. It took over 5 hours for the next player to bite the dust. That player happened to be Erik Seidel, who was bounced in 4th place after a rollercoaster-ride of a day.
Fabrice Soulier had developed a nasty habit of shoving all-in towards the closing stages of the event, and he managed to get away with it time after time. Eventually, Mike McDonald decided to keep him honest. Soulier’s A,10 fell to his A,Q and the Frenchman was bounced as well.
The heads-up stage between David Steicke and McDonald was a short one: it only lasted for 23 hands. The final hand of the event saw Steicke’s K,2o go up against McDonald’s A,4o. The board fell a bunch of bricks and Steicke was done in second. He picked up $506k for his efforts, while McDonald was rewarded with $782k.
