Nicolas Vaca-Rondon earned 160 points on the 2012-2013 World Series of Poker Circuit, which was 28th on the National Leader Board and enough for an at-large bid into the National Championship.
During that time the 25-year-old from Bogota, Colombia racked up ten cashes for $103,621, which included a ring win in Harrah’s Cherokee Event #1 $365 No-Limit Hold’em for $51,005. Additionally, Vaca-Rondon has three WSOP cashes for $24,973 with the majority of that coming from a fifth-place finish in the 2012 WSOP Casino Employees Event for $15,359.
Interestingly, Vaca-Rondon used to work as a dealer at Harrah’s New Orleans, the venue for today’s National Championship final table. Even though he hails from a different continent, Vaca-Rondon does have a little home field advantage.
Vaca-Rondon, now a full-time poker player who says he’s going to the World Cup in Brazil next year, begins the final table sixth in chips.
In 2009, Brock Parker, a 31-year-old professional poker player from Silver Springs, Maryland, won two World Series of Poker bracelets in back-to-back games—Event #14 $2,500 Limit Hold’em-Six Handed for $223,697 and Event #19 $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em-Six Handed for $552,745.
In the former event, Parker defeated a field of 367 players, including a final table that included Kyle “KPR16” Ray (6th-$31,966), Barry Shulman (5th-$43,201) and Daniel Negreanu (2nd-$138,280). In the latter, Parker topped an even larger field (1,068 players) and defeated the likes of Brian Meinders (8th-$54,777(, Clayton Newman (6th-$76,123) and Joe Serock (2nd-$341,783) on his way to victory.
All told he has 27 WSOP cashes for $1,468,790. Parker will obviously add to that total here today as he seeks his third gold bracelet. It's also worth noting that Parker won the Borgata Fall Open $2,500 Main Event for $372,568, and aside from being a top-notch poker player, he's also accomplished on the Magic the Gathering Pro Tour.
Parker, who paid $10,000 to play the National Championship, enters today's final table as the chip leader with 825,000.
Jeremy Ausmus has always been a quiet, solid grinder, but he really made a name for himself last fall when he took to poker's largest stage — the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event final table. As a member of the famed "Octo-Nine," Ausmus went on to finish in fifth place for $2,155,313.
Ausmus earned his way into this event by being one of the 100 WSOP Player of the Year qualifiers, where he ranked 35th overall. Last year, Ausmus cashed a whopping nine times at the WSOP, and four times in 2011. Outside of his massive success in the Main Event, Ausmus' WSOP cashes in 2012 were highlighted by a 10th-place finish in the $2,500 Mixed Hold'em for $12,964 and a 21st in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em for $28,793.
In 2013, Ausmus has already showed that he's ready for another big year. He took 12th in the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic for $70,970, fifth in the WSOP Asia-Pacific No-Limit Hold'em Accumulator for $56,865, and then won the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza $2,500 Main Event for $121,853.
Ausmus is married with two children: a two-year old girl and an 18-month-old boy. Under interests he listed "guitar, piano and scotch."
Ausmus enters the final table second in chips with 799,000, just 26,000 behind leader Brock Parker.
Robert Panitch from Northbrook, IL received an entry into the 2013 World Series of Poker Circuit National Championship through an at-large bid after earning 175 points throughout the 2012-13 WSOP Circuit season. Those points were good enough to rank Panitch 20th overall, and he earned them through eight cashes and by winning one gold ring.
From his cashes on this season's WSOP Circuit, Panitch has earned $66,542. His best result was at Caesars Palace when he won the $365 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo for $18,010 and the gold ring. He also has cashes for $14,074 and $13,033 this season, the latter of which was a 12th-place finish in the WSOP Circuit Harrah's Atlantic City Main Event.
The 62-year-old Panitch is a fan favorite among the young circuit grinders, who have affectionately nicknamed him "Uncle Krunk." According to many of them, the squirrely elder statesman learned about the National Championship points race halfway through the season and then ended up getting it.
In addition, the circuit regulars have taken to telling a story about Panitch from The Lodge Casino stop in Colorado earlier in the season. As the story goes, Panitch was railing the Main FT and went into diabetic seizure. An ambulance came and took him to the hospital, but two hours later he was on the rail with a Heineken!
Panitch enters the final table today fifth in chips with 338,000.
Hello and welcome to the third and final day of the 2013 Southern Comfort 100 Proof World Series of Poker National Championship. After two days of exciting action we are down to an official final table of eight, captained by two-time WSOP bracelet winner Brock Parker. Parker, who won both of his bracelets in the same week in 2009, bagged 825,000 chips. The only other players to bag more than 700,000 chips were fellow bracelet winner Max Steinberg and 2012 Octo-Niner Jeremy Ausmus.
All three of those players bought into this event with $10,000, as did Joe Tehan, who is the current short stack. The remaining four players, Tim Bowman, Jonathan Hilton, Nicolas Vaca-Rondon, and Robert "Uncle Krunk" Panitch all qualified for the National Championship on the circuit. Bowman won the Harrah's Cherokee Main Event, while the other three players accrued enough points throughout the season to earn a seat.
Final Table Seating Assignments
Seat
Player
Chips
1
Joe Tehan
117,000
2
Max Steinberg
738,000
3
Tim Bowman
118,000
4
Jonathan Hilton
588,000
5
Nicolas Vaca-Rondon
233,000
6
Brock Parker
825,000
7
Jeremy Ausmus
799,000
8
Robert Panitch
338,000
The cards are scheduled to be in the air at 2 p.m. local time, but with this final table airing on ESPN in July, delays due to television production are expected. Be sure to stay tuned for all of your up-to-the-minute updates straight from the final table.
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