Chris Bolek Wins $1,100 Finale for $180,000
In the wee hours of the morning, Chris Bolek came out on top in the $1,100 Finale at the 2018 Caribbean Poker Party. The convention center was already cleared out with only a few staff members remaining when Bolek defeated Dylan Lask.
Bolek will pocket $180,000 for his efforts after refusing to make any sort of deal with his opponents. Lask will take home $109,250 but the trophy belongs to Bolek. The American poker pro has over $2 million in career earnings with multiple victories to his name and this will only add to his resume.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Chris Bolek | United States | $180,000 |
| 2nd | Dylan Lask | United States | $109,250 |
| 3rd | Richard Alati | United States | $75,000 |
| 4th | Alexandr Merzhvinskiy | Russia | $50,000 |
| 5th | Aymon Hata | Germany | $35,000 |
| 6th | Aleksei Istomin | Russia | $24,500 |
There were 216 players returning for Day 2 and only 113 of them would make the money. Ryan Riess was eliminated just prior to the money and Mihail Zamiga was the official bubble boy. With each table being six handed, the eliminations were fast and furious throughout much of the day. Some familiar names to make it into the money include Kenny Hallaert, Martin Jacobson, Griffin Benger, Mike Sexton, Fedor Holz, Jeremy Ausmus, and David Peters.
Once the pay jumps started to become more significant, the action slowed down and especially on the final table. Rainer Kempe was eliminated in eighth place, just missing out on the final table. Aymon Hata was the biggest name of the final six players and some would have considered him the favorite, but he bowed out in fifth place. Four-handed play also continued for multiple levels before Alexandr Merzhvinskiy headed to the rail in fourth place.
The final three players looked and the numbers are tried desperately to come up with a deal but nobody was willing to cooperate. Richard Alati took a chance with king-ten suited but Lask picked up pocket threes and held on to win the flip. The heads-up battle went on for about an hour before Chris Bolek laid two heavy punches with ten-high straights. The final blow left Lask with less than a small blind and the match ended on the very next hand.
That concludes the PokerNews live reporting coverage from the 2018 Caribbean Poker Party but stay tuned for upcoming events.