Home / Poker News February 2014 / WPT Alpha 8 Johannesburg - Daniel Cates Wins
WPT Alpha 8 Johannesburg - Daniel Cates Wins
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2014-02-17 09:35
The second and last day of the WPT’s Alpha 8 Johannesburg event saw 7 players return to the tables, with the goal to play down to the winner. Daniel Cates was the one who had the biggest stack and the best odds at the beginning of the day and sure enough, he took full advantage of that position. He won, walking away with the $500k top prize. The one Cates defeated heads-up was Kinesh Pather, who earned $275k for his second place.
PokerStars pro Jason Mercier finished 3rd, for a $200k reward.
The first victim of the day was none other than Antonio Esfandiari, the only player who put more than one buy-in into the middle in this
poker tournament. Esfandiari got into a tussle with Kinesh Pather, a row which ended with both players pushing their stacks into the middle on a flop of Qh,Jd,7h. It turned out Esfandiari had a Kh, 6h for the flush draw, but Pather had an already made hand: a Q,Jo for the top two pair.
Neither the turn nor the river brought a heart though and Esfandiari was done in 7th place.
Philipp Gruissem, a two-time champion of this event, was the one who followed the Magician to the rail. Erik Seidel’s elimination in 5th place marked the arrival of the money-bubble. At the beginning of 4-handed action, Jeff Gross was the short-stack. He rebounded though, managing to even take the lead at one point. Eventually, he still became the bubble-boy though, busting out in 4th place. The one who sent him packing was Daniel Cates. The two players got their stacks into the middle pre-flop, as Cates held pocket 8s against Gross’ A,8o. The board was all bricks and thus Gross tournament life was curbed outside the money.
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