Bourkney & Dietz Chop Seneca's Summer Slam $50,000 gtd for $19,691 a Piece
A big double up just before the final table propelled Tyler Dietz up the leaderboard and kicked off a heater that would end with Dietz and Rob Bourkney heads-up in Event #2: $200 No-Limit Hold'em $50,000 Guarantee. The two finalists would agree to an even chop that would see them top a field of 670 entries en route to a top prize of $19,691 a piece.
Much like the High Roller event earlier in the week, one player single-handedly destroyed the final table. This time it was Dietz who ran over the table. Dietz eliminated five of his final ten opponents with Bourkney busting two.
The win gives Dietz his second-best tournament cash, just shy of a $22,546 payday for fourth place at a WSOP-Circuit event in Baltimore earlier this year. In fact, this is just Dietz's seventh live-recorded tournament cash and boosts his career earnings from $35,000 to just under $55,000.
Bourkney has a pile of cashes on record but this is his best. Adding this one to his resume will boost Bourkney over $140,000 lifetime with his previous best coming from a win at a 2018 Spring Fling event in Verona for $17,289
Final Table Results:
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rob Bourkney | United States | $19,691 |
| 2 | Tyler Dietz | United States | $19,691 |
| 3 | Alex Cheng | Canada | $9,857 |
| 4 | Dan Wagner | United States | $6,882 |
| 5 | Andy Spears | United States | $5,140 |
| 6 | Barry Kruger | Canada | $3,863 |
| 7 | Ira Basil | Canada | $3,246 |
| 8 | Bill Murray | United States | $2,705 |
| 9 | Michael Johnson | United States | $2,164 |
| 10 | Tom Wukovits | United States | $1,699 |
With a total of 670 entries, a prize pool of $108,205 was created, smashing the $50,000 guarantee. Day 2 kicked off with 90 players returning for action. Just the top 63 spots would get paid with anyone making the money guaranteed at least $390. It didn't take long for the bubble to be reached.
About an hour into play, hand-for-hand at each table began, and on the second hand, the bubble was popped. Chris Gras opened to 12,000 with queen-eight suited and then called a three-bet worth 27,000 from Stephen Bullard on the button. The flop came down queen-eight-five and Gras check-called Bullard's all in jam for about 70,000. Bullard had pocket kings and no help came as he was eliminated on the money bubble.
From there, the field reduced quickly with the likes of Scott Murawa (61st), Rob Zaenglein (55th), Budwey Salhab (54th), Ken Wasik (38th), Maria Parlatore (36th), Gras (34th), Matt Ahrens (21st), Mike LaTour (18th), and Mike Curtiss (13th) all departing with at least some consolation before the big money was reached..
Zaenglein exited in a cruel fashion. Three players got all their chips in preflop with Zaenglein having Paul Herberger and another tablemate at risk. Zaenglein was in great shape to scoop a massive pot having pocket aces against the pocket kings of Herberger and ace-king for the third player in the hand. Unfortunately for Zaenglein, the case king landed on the river and Herberger raked in the 450,000 chip pot. Unable to spin it back up, Zaenglein busted soon after.
Final Table Action
Just over six hours into play, Justin Quin busted in 11th place to converge the remaining players to one table. The official final table would be set not long after as Tom Wukovits lost a huge pot when he doubled up Dietz and was eliminated on the next hand.
Michael Johnson had lost a large portion of his stack to chipleader, Alex Cheng before he lost a race to Barry Kruger to bust in ninth. The next hand, Bill Murray found himself in rough shape all in preflop with king-queen against Dietz's ace-jack and Dietz made a boat to sink Murray. Ira Basil was in similar shape a few hands later against Bourkney. Bourkey shoved on the turn of an ace-high board and Basil called it off with top-pair. Bourkney, however, had two pair and Basil failed to improve.
Dietz would claim his next victim with the elimination of Kruger in sixth. Dietz flopped the nut flush and Kruger flopped top pair, the chips went in on the turn but Kruger was drawing dead. The Dietz-dozer continued on a path of destruction as he ran over start-of-day chipleader, Andy Spears and then Dan Wagner in quick succession.
Spears' elimination was also a cruel one as he got Dietz to shove on him with pocket nines on an eight-high flop with Spears trapping with aces. Dietz backdoored a four-flush though and Dietz added to his monster stack. The rest of Wagner's short stack was piled on soon after.
Arriving at the table as the big stack, Cheng had his stack chipped away by his tablemates until he eventually got all in with ten big blinds. Bourkney put him at risk and won a race with a pocket pair of fives against Cheng's ace-ten. A heads-up showdown was set with Dietz having Bourkney out-chipped two-to-one.
Bourkney would pick away at the lead and would eventually score two double ups that saw the day almost even. At that point the chop would be discussed and a deal was made.
PokerNews will pick the action of the 2018 Seneca Niagara Falls Summer Slam back up on Tuesday but the series rolls on with Event #4: $120 No-Limit Hold'em featuring a $10,000 guarantee kicking off at 5 p.m Monday evening.
