Blake Whittington Lays Claim to Sixth Career WSOPC Gold Ring
PokerNews is in town to live report the $1,700 Main Event here at the World Series of Poker Circuit at Horseshoe Tunica, but that is just one of the gold ring events that will have played out by the end of the series.
In Event #2: $400 No-Limit Hold’em (One-Day), 271 runners created an $89,430 prize pool that was paid out amongst the top 41 players including Craig Welko (11th - $1,445), Edward Moses (23rd - $792), James Mackey (26th - $718), Donnie Phan (28th - $666), and John Nowak (39th - $609).
In the end, well-known circuit grinder Blake Whittington defeated Andrew Brinkley in heads-up play to win the $19,786 top prize and his sixth gold ring, the third of which came at Horseshoe Tunica.
“It feels very good, it feels pretty special to win another one here. I passed up going to Borgata because I needed points here. It’s nice to get a win in the books, for sure,” the 28-year-old Whittington said after his win.
He continued: “At the start of the final table, I got a double through the chip leader. Then he just started beating up on everyone, and he just amassed like half the chips in play with eight left. It was a really tough final table. The three-handed battle also went on for so long and nobody would bust, the short stack always just won the all-in. It was very grindy, I just tried to keep it as low variance as possible. I was just lucky enough to be on top after all of that.”
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Hometown | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blake Whittington | Jacksonville, Florida | $19,786 |
| 2 | Andrew Brinkley | Atlanta, Georgia | $12,228 |
| 3 | Jonathan Frye | Mississippi | $8,789 |
| 4 | Heath Claxton | Wrightsville, Georgia | $6,428 |
| 5 | Michael Clements | Burns, Tennessee | $4,786 |
| 6 | Sean Small | Douglasville, Georgia | $3,628 |
| 7 | James Goodson | Little Rock, Arkansas | $2,801 |
| 8 | Matthew South | Florence, Alabama | $2,204 |
| 9 | Carl Masters | Clarksville, Tennessee | $1,768 |