Justin Schwartz Wins Foxwoods Poker Classic Main Event
On Sunday, the 2013 Foxwoods Poker Classic $2,500 Main Event wrapped up with one man standing tall behind the $112,582 first-place prize. That fortunate player was Justin Schwartz, and he conquered a field of 192 entrants.
2013 FPC Main Event Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Justin Schwartz | $112,582 |
| 2 | Ryan Eriquezzo | $69,541 |
| 3 | Martin Koschik | $50,229 |
| 4 | Mike Lavoie | $36,849 |
| 5 | Fred Kulikowski | $27,539 |
| 6 | Nick Petrangelo | $20,914 |
| 7 | Raj Patel | $16,152 |
| 8 | John Dibella | $12,687 |
| 9 | Rob Brown | $10,137 |
The event began on Friday, March 15, and after Day 1 it was Omar Saeed leading the field over a top 10 that included notables Nick Petrangelo and Matthew Wantman. Kyle Loman, James Campbell, Ryan Eriquezzo, David Stefanski, Victor Ramdin and David Inselberg were a few of the other recognizable names who had successful starts to the tournament.
With under 100 players returning, Day 2 was a key day for all because the field worked its way down toward the money. The day was cut short of the bubble with 30 players remaining, and Laurence Olanyk on top. Olanyk had an impressive lead on the field with 696,600 in chips. His next closest competitors were Michael Young with 348,200 and Charbel Azzi with 348,000. Only one other player topped the 300,000-chip mark: Schwartz with 300,800 in chips heading into Day 3.
Although Olanyk was the man best positioned to make a run at the title, he had plenty of stiff competition to deal with. Eriquezzo entered Day 3 fifth in chips, John Dibella was ninth, Rob Brown sat 14th, Petrangelo was 17th and Raj Patel was 21st.
With nine players needing to go home before the money was reached, it was inevitable that one unlucky player would earn the title of "bubbly boy." That player unfortunately ran the A♥Q♦ into Eriquezzo's A♠A♦ preflop. The board ran out 9♥9♦3♦A♣K♣ to give Eriquezzo the pot. With that elimination, the remaining 21 players locked up a minimum of $4,806.
After several more eliminations, including Peter Campo (20th - $4,806), Stefanski (17th - $5,672), Lawrence Allen (14th - $6,754) and Olanyk (10th - $8,227), the final table was set. Leading the final nine players was Schwartz with over 1.6 million in chips.
Brown bowed out first, hitting the rail in ninth place. He was followed out the door by 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion Dibella in eighth place, Patel in seventh place, Petrangelo in sixth and Fred Kulikowski in fifth. From there, the remaining four — Schwartz, Eriquezzo, Mike Lavoie and Martin Koschik --took a dinner break.
When the players returned, Lavoie fell in fourth place, then Koschik was eliminated in third place — both at the hands of Schwartz. This set up the heads-up battle with Schwartz holding the chip lead (4.282 million) over Eriquezzo (1.486 million).
Schwartz road that chip lead to victory, eliminating Eriquezzo with the 10♠10♣ against the 5♦5♥. Eriquezzo limped in from the button for 30,000, and Schwartz raised to 90,000 from the big blind. Eriquezzo reraised to 255,000, and Schwartz moved all in. Eriquezzo made the call to put himself at risk, but saw the bad news: his pair of fives was behind. The board ran out 10♥3♠3♣2♥3♦, and Eriquezzo was eliminated in second place, earning $69,541.
Coming up at Foxwoods is the 2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit running March 27 to April 8. The $1,675 Main Event will kick off on April 6 with Day 1a at 11 a.m. ET and Day 1b at 7 p.m. PokerNews will be on hand for live coverage for you to follow along, so be sure to come right back to our live reporting pages then.
Lead photo courtesy of FoxwoodsPoker.com.
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