Congratulations to Marcel Vonk, Event #54 Champion ($570,960)
While much of the poker world's attention has been focused down the hall in the Amazon Room for Day 1a of the Main Event today, there was some serious drama here in the Pavilion Room as Event #54 played out to its conclusion.
A total of 3,844 came out for this last of the open-field, $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em events, and after four days of play, Dutch player Marcel Vonk has outlasted all to take the title. It is an historic day -- Vonk becomes the first from the Netherlands ever to win a WSOP bracelet in no-limit hold'em.
Vonk is currently getting his picture taken with his shiny new WSOP bracelet, having survived an exciting heads-up battle against David Peters to take the title. It only seemed right those two would be there at the end. Peters and Vonk came into today's final day of play one-two in chips, and one or the other remained at the top of the counts for most of play today.
Vonk, an accomplished online pro who has written strategy articles concerning subjects like ROI, has turned his one grand buy-in into a $570,960 payday! That'll probably show up on the graph.
Congratulations to Marcel Volk, Event #54 winner. Thanks for following our coverage of this and all of the preliminary events, and be sure to check back with PokerNews over the next couple of weeks for all your Main Event coverage!