Colossus Chip Leader: Prasetyo Fired Twice, Won Big, & is Part of $23K Last Longer
What started with 22,374 players is now down to the final nine. On Tuesday, Event#5: The Colossus played down from 39 players to the final table, which meant plenty of players saw their dreams of winning poker's biggest-ever live tournament come to an end.
Among those to leave empty handed were Mike Leah (39th - $23,022), Ryan Laplante (29th - $27,215), Anthony Spinella (22nd - $32,352), Adam Lamphere (19th - $32,352), and Bradley Burns (10th - $55,968), who suffered a great deal of bad luck on the last hand of the day, the same hand that saw Aditya Prasetyo bag and tag the chip lead with 30% of the chips in play.
In the hand, with the blinds at 200,000/400,000/50,000, Prasetyo opened for 850,000 from middle position and Burns moved all in for approximately six million from the button. The blinds both folded and Prasetyo snap-called.
Prasetyo: A♣K♣
Bruns: A♠K♠
"I thought I was ahead when he moved all in because he had 20 BBs and I'd been pretty active," Prasetyo said after the hand. "I feel like the table was thinking I was opening with a lot of hands, which I was, I just happened to pick up a premium at that point. The guy who moved all in had just lost a big hand against me so I feel like he was on tilt and he wanted to get his chips back."
Whatever the case, the chips were in the middle when the flop came down 9♣3♣Q♣.
"Obviously we had the same hand and when the dealer spread the flop I was pretty happy to see the window card," Prasetyo continued. "I was hoping for another club to flop a flush draw and freeroll the hand. Two clubs followed so I was pretty happy about that."
Burns, dreams thoroughly crushed, was left drawing dead and watched helplessly as the turn and river cards were run out to make his elimination official. With that, the final table was set with Prasetyo holding 39,300,000.
Here's a look at the official final table:
The Final Table
| Place | Player | Hometown | Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aditya Prasetyo | Cambridge, MA | 39,300,000 |
| 2 | Kenny Hallaert | Hansbeke, Belgium | 18,575,000 |
| 3 | Bradley Mcfarland | Whitehall, PA | 14,250,000 |
| 4 | Paul Lentz | San Francisco, CA | 10,475,000 |
| 5 | David Farber | Lake Mary, FL | 8,725,000 |
| 6 | Lance Garcia | Houston, TX | 7,275,000 |
| 7 | Garry Simms | Shelbyville, KY | 6,850,000 |
| 8 | Anthony Blanda | Las Vegas, NV | 4,600,000 |
| 9 | Ray Henson | Houston, TX | 2,475,000 |
Prasetyo, who fired a bullet and missed on Day 1a, but managed to make it through on Day 1b, was obviously happy, though he tried to keep things in perspective.
"I see that there is 112 million chips in play," explained Prasetyo. "I have 39 million, about a third of the chips in play. I mean it's poker, we've seen a lot of things happen. Someone heads up 8-1 losing the title and a short stack winning the tournament, so I'm just pretty much going to play my regular game and see what happens."
Prasetyo's regular game is actually pretty good. He learned to play back in 2007 when his brother introduced him to the game at Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia, and since then he's amassed $257,345 in WSOP-related cashes, including $125,372 for a fifth-place finished in the 2013 WSOP Event #49: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em.
"The biggest difference is that in that tournament I was pretty much a short stack for most of it," said Prasetyo. "It wasn't as long as this tournament, it was 2,300-player tournament, and I was pretty much 20 big blinding my way throughout the tournament. I arrived at the final table maybe seventh or eighth in chips. This is gonna be pretty different because I'm entering the final table as the chip leader. It's a much better spot to be in, but just gonna hope the cards will be there for me tomorrow."
Prasetyo, who also has two WSOP Circuit gold rings on his résumé, also weighed in on the first-place prize controversy that broke out a couple days prior when the prize pool was announced.
"I'm pretty shocked about how low that prize is," Prasetyo said candidly. "Obviously I've never played a tournament, live or online, with so many players, but the fact that the first-place prize was only 5.7% of the prize pool, I was pretty surprised. I thought it was definitely going to be over a million. I think a lot of people lost money on over/under bets."
While he's the man best positioned to make a run at the top prize, Prasetyo realizes he faces some stiff competition, especially in the form of Cord Garcia, a friendly foe he's met many times on the circuit.
"I have the most experience with Seat 4, Cord Garcia, because we're both circuit grinders," explained Prasetyo. "I've played a bunch of tournaments with him. I know he's generally a pretty aggressive player, but today he was short stacked and obviously not looking to bubble the final table. He's playing a little bit on the tighter side."
Interestingly, both Prasetyo and Garcia are in a last-longer bet along with another finalist, the short-stacked Ray Henson, who it's worth noting won the largest event in WSOP Circuit history back in January.
"The interesting thing is I took part in a 91-man last longer bet on Facebook, which was $250 each," Prasetyo said. "$23K up top, and 10 of us made Day 3, which I was really surprised. Three of us are still here on the final table. What are the chances of 91 people being in a 22,374-player tournament and three of those players ended up on the final table?"
The final nine players will return on Wednesday at Noon local time to play down to a winner. PokerNews will have a recap of that tournament upon completion of play.
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PR & Media Manager for PokerNews, Podcast host & 2013 WSOP Bracelet Winner.
