
Congratulations to Mark Sawkar for winning our third Main Event seat! Mark was the 3rd seed at the start of the tourney, behind Anthony and Keithy and just ahead of Matt Burley. This will be Mark’s first time playing in the Main Event.
The players began with an average of 170,000 chips with the top seed starting with 200,000 and the bottom seeds (our three playoff winners) starting with 150,000 each. The levels were 40 minutes long (starting at 1k/2k/2k) from levels 1 – 6 and 35 minutes in length beginning in level 7.

We lost our first player at the end of level 4 when Don ran his 11bb stack (holding KJ) into Matt’s AA. After that we lost Ranjit, Rene, Keithy and Anthony between levels 5 and 7. Kelsi busted next in level 8, leaving Gary, Patsy, Matt and Mark. By now Mark had a commanding chip lead over the field causing everyone to play shallower than what the average stack size would be.

Gary lasted until the next level before going out in 4th place. The remaining three of Patsy, Matt and Mark then played 3-handed for almost two hours before Patsy finally lost all of her chips in the 11th level (10k/20k/20k).
Now heads-up begins with Mark’s stack at 1.57m chips to Matt’s 122k chips – a 13 to 1 advantage! After a few hands they got it in with Matt holding KK to Mark’s 44 for Matt’s first double up.
Matt continued to grind his stack up until this big hand: Mark raised and Matt called and they saw a flop of 8c9c9d. Matt check-called the flop and they saw a J fall on the turn. Matt check-raised all in and Mark called. Matt tabled J9 and Mark showed QcJc. The river bricked and Matt took the chip lead with about 1m to Mark’s 700k.
After that everything seemed to go Mark’s way. He kept winning small and medium-sized pots as Matt seemed unable to connect or slow Mark down. Matt did have a chance to take it down, with a small chip-lead remaining, when they got it all in on the turn with this hand: Matt held Ad8c against Mark’s Ah2h and the board ran out Ac7c4c Kd 4h for a chop.

Soon after that Mark flopped a set with 22 vs Matt’s top pair to give him back the chip lead. Mark ended up earning the victory after about a 90 minute heads-up duel.
Congratulations to ALL of our winners (plus Mark Ross) and good luck to them and the Syndicate in Las Vegas this Summer!!!
Final Table Results:
- Mark
- Matt
- Patsy
- Gary
- Kelsi
- Anthony
- Keithy
- Rene
- Ranjit
- Don
.