Blinds: 800/1600/160
After an initial early position raise from Richard "unclebets" Bai, and then a three-bet from Brad "bd3303" Albrink, a preflop raising war resulted in both players being all in with Albrinck at risk.
It was a pretty low risk once the cards were revealed and the board ran out 
.
Richard "unclebets" Bai: 
Brad "bd3303" Albrinck: 
Chop it up!
Method of Qualification: At-Large Points (48th)
Piccioli barely squeaked into the top 50 points earners this season, and given a record that includes $4.5 million in tournament cashes and former world No. 1 status online, that won't be welcome news to the other qualifiers.
"Pellepelle" has done most of his damage in the higher buy-in events on the Circuit this year, cashing in five Main Events from November through February. Two were final-table finishes, with ninth place in Thunder Valley followed by a runner-up finish in Horseshoe Tunica a week later, worth $89K.
When it was time to put away the live reads and dust off the mouse for online play, Piccioli pocketed his first Circuit ring in Event #1: $200 No-Limit Hold'em Knockout during the February festival.
Piccioli also has a bracelet from a large-field event at WSOP Asia-Pacific back in 2013.
However, when it comes to WSOP success, he's undoubtedly best known for two Main Event runs. In 2017, Piccioli made the final table of the WSOP Main Event. There, he had a tough go of it on Day 9 and wound up with a sixth-place finish worth $1,675,000.
More recently, under the moniker "smbdySUCKme," he took a chip lead into the final day of the record-breaking GGPoker Main Event. With just 37 opponents left out of a field of 5,802, Piccioli had to stomach a 23rd-place finish as his solid stack melted away in rough back-to-back hands — first losing top two pair to a runner flush then having a standard button shove run into a bigger hand.
Jaunt to Mexico over, it's time for Piccioli to get back to work stateside, and his penchant for getting his best results in the biggest events seems tailor-made for the GCC.
Blinds: 600/1200/100
After action folded to Michael "Hookem87" Moncek on the button and he shoved his last 15,896, which was called by Josh "GN_150" Reichard in the big blind.
Michael "Hookem87" Moncek: 
Josh "GN_150" Reichard: 
The board ran out 
, which ended Moncek's tournament and gave Reichard, who had recently doubled up, even more chips.
Blinds: 500/100/100
This level saw the following two hands where short-stacked players survived to play another hand.
In the first, Ian "APokerJoker2" Steinman raised to 6,250, Shankar "burgersssss" Pillai shoved all in, and Steinman called off. After both hands were revealed it was obvious a chopped pot was coming unless one of the players made a flush, which didn't happen on the 
runout.
Ian "APokerJoke2" Steinman: 
Shankar "burgersssss" Pillai: 
In the second hand, Josh "GN_150" Reichard shoved his last 10,598 from under the gun, and when action folded around to fellow Wisconsinite Richard "unclebets" Bai in the big blind, he made the call.
Josh "GN_150" Reichard: 
Richard "unclebets" Bai: 
Reichard would need a favorable runout to stay alive, which he got after it came down 
.
In 2014, the National Championship moved once again to Bally’s Casino Atlantic City and the final table was held outdoors on the famed Boardwalk.
For the first time ever, a player who paid $10,000 to enter the tournament came out on top as German pro Dominik Nitsche beat a 126-player field to win a $352,800 first-place prize and what was his second gold bracelet.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dominik Nitsche | Germany | $352,800 |
| 2 | Athanasios Polychronopoulos | USA | $218,056 |
| 3 | Matthew Ashton | UK | $157,399 |
| 4 | Christopher Bibb | USA | $115,655 |
| 5 | Tracy Doss | USA | $86,461 |
| 6 | Andrew Robinson | USA | $65,734 |
| 7 | Ylon Schwartz | USA | $50,816 |
| 8 | Jeffrey Gunnip | USA | $39,917 |
| 9 | Sean Lippel | USA | $31,865 |
Blinds: 800/400/80
After an early-position limp, Matt "RubberFist" Stout raised to 1,800 from the cutoff, only to be three-bet to 6,400 from Andrew "Watsonburger" Robinson on the button.
Stout then responded with a four-bet to 17,400, which was met with a five-bet shove for 85,574 from Robinson. That was enough to get Stout to fold.
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