Jonathan Cronin Wins WPTDeepStacks Jacksonville ($107,386)
While big events in the Midwest and on the West Coast wrapped up earlier this week, Florida held its own sizable mid-stakes event as WPTDeepStacks Jacksonville wrapped up late Monday night. Jonathan Cronin claimed a first-place prize of $107,386 for getting through a field of 372 in the $1,500 Main Event.
Cronin had about $75,000 in cashes before that and hails from neighboring Georgia.
"Right now, it feels amazing," he told tournament reporters. "It hasn't quite hit yet, but it's getting there, it's definitely getting there. I've had a lot of great tournaments, a lot of great runs, but this definitely tops all of them."
Official Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jonathan Cronin | $107,386* |
| 2 | Adam Shuman | $73,078 |
| 3 | Mario Oliveira | $46,980 |
| 4 | Jimmy Ilanlou | $30,856 |
| 5 | Eric Chastain | $23,762 |
| 6 | Ben Scrogins | $19,658 |
| 7 | Luke Graham | $16,474 |
| 8 | Scott Hall | $13,468 |
| 9 | Ashley Brown | $10,438 |
*includes $3K WPTDeepStacks Championship package
The event surpassed its $300,000 guarantee by building a prize pool of just over $500,000. Ryan Jones, David Prociak and recent five-time Circuit ring winner Loni Harwood were among those cashing in the 47 paid places but missing out on the final table.
Final Table Action
Cronin had the second-shortest stack heading into the final table with just about 24 big blinds, according to the live updates. However, he experienced some early success to double his stack to around 1 million at 12,000/24,000/4,000, and his good fortune continued to the first big showdown.
Start-of-day leader Mario Oliveira opened the action, Cronin three-bet and they got stacks in when Oliveira shoved the rest in holding queens. It was ace-king for Cronin, and though missed the flop, he paired each of his hole cards on the turn and river to double right into the lead.
From there, short stacks Ashley Brown and Scott Hall went down before a three-way all in developed between Oliveira, Adam Shuman and Luke Graham. Oliveira had the worst of it with nines against kings and A♦Q♦, respectively, but he flopped a third nine and tripled up while Graham busted in the side pot.
Cronin slipped down to 795,000 at 30,000/60,000/10,000 but found aces in the small blind when Ben Scrogins picked up ace-queen on the button. Though a queen flopped, no further help would emerge and Scrogins was left with crumbs and soon went bust.
Oliveira and Eric Chastain each got in combo draws but Oliveira's flush draw was better, so when they both got there, Chastain was reduced to under 20 big blinds. He'd be whittled down under 10 until he got Q♦J♦ in and found himself dominated by the K♥J♣ of Cronin and soon eliminated.
Shuman then caught a heater, first fading a monster draw — Q♦J♦ on 10♠9♦5♦ — of Jimmy Ilanlou to bust him and then winning with queens against Oliveira's A♣K♣ to take all but his last few crumbs before busting him as well.
Cronin was down heads up with 3.5 million against Shuman's 5.7 million at 50,000/100,000/15,000. Cronin took the lead though and had a chance for the win, but he ran top pair and a gutshot into Shuman's set of fives and had to ship a double when the river bricked.
Right about where he started, Cronin worked back into the lead over the next couple of levels. He then got kings all in preflop on a four-bet and was fading ace-ten, and a dead seven-high board forced Shuman to settle for $73,078.
