Congratulations to Tomas Alenius, Champion of Event No. 26 ($197,488)
There were 15 players left standing after the first two days and 20 levels of play, at which point Al "Sugar Bear" Barbieri held the chip advantage. When play began today, escalating stakes quickly caught up with half of the field, and in just two levels the field had shrunk to six players.
With six left, Barbieri was still the clear leader with nearly 1.2 million chips, with Glenn Engelbert his nearest competitor at the time with 465,000. However, after the shorter-stacked players, Dominik Kulicki and Demetrios Arvanetes, went out in sixth and fifth, respectively, Engelbert found himself on the slide. Unfortunately for him, Engelbert found it necessary to commit the last of his chips on a hand when Alenius held pocket aces, and he went out in fourth.
The three remaining players -- Barbieri, Alenius, and Jason Tam -- were nearly even in chips when three-handed began, but Sugar Bear quickly lost ground and was out in third. When heads-up play began, Tam had a 3-to-1 chip advantage with 2.175 million to Alenius' 720,000. But with limits of 40,000/80,000 -- and eventually 50,000/100,000 -- a couple of good hands could change things quickly.
And change they did. After over an hour of back-and-forthing, Alenius had the big advantage, and eventually all of the chips. Congratulations to Tomas Alenius, champion of Event No. 26!
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