Home / Poker News September 2011 / EPL Pro/Am Event – Greg Mueller Wins
EPL Pro/Am Event – Greg Mueller Wins
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2011-09-08 09:31
The EPL’s Pro/Am event – which turned out to be more of a pros only event than anything else – played down to its final table, awarding $20k seats in the Main Event to a whole bunch of name players, among them to winner Greg Mueller, to Phil Hellmuth and to Andreas Hoivold. The goal of the last day of the event was to play down to the 9-handed final table. After all, each and every one of those who made the final table earned the same amount: $20k, so the organizers had concluded that there wasn’t really anything extra to play for. Given that only 97 players had coughed up the buy-in for the event, the prize-pool fell well short of the $180k guarantee. With no extra money to play for, the remaining players agreed to battle it out for some Global Poker Index points nonetheless.
20 players returned to the tables at the beginning of the day and the final 9 was reached relatively fast: besides Hellmuth, Hoivold and Mueller, Michael DiVita, Jeremy Ausmus, Sean Getzwiller, Brandon Myers, Nam Le and Russell Rosenbum won $20k seats.
For those not in possession of an EPL membership card, the accomplishment fulfilled a necessary requirement to play in the Main Event. For Hellmuth, who has a 5-year card, for Le, who has a 3-year card and for Mueller, who has a 2-year one, the reaching of the final table simply meant that they wouldn’t have to pay out the buy-in from their own pockets.
After Jamie Kaplan’s demise in 10th place, the battle for the few Global Poker Index points which were up for grabs commenced. Hoivold landed the first knockout, taking out Ausmus and DiVita in one move. Mueller then stepped in and took all his chips, knocking out Getzwiller and Hellmuth shortly after.
The heads-up stage between Mueller and Nam Le was a short one: the final hand saw Mueller’s pocket Js triumph over Nam Le’s K,9o.
