Anson "Tara@0z" Tsang wins Second Career Bracelet in Event #68: $500 Deepstack NLHE ($150,460)
The 2020 GGPoker World Series of Poker Online Bracelet Events have crowned the next champion in Event #68: $500 Deepstack, which has come to a conclusion after nearly 13 hours and 20 minutes of play. A field of 2,315 entries created a prize pool of $1,099,625 and Yan Shing "Anson" Tsang has earned his second WSOP bracelet after defeating Mohaiman "Ironman3000" Ashrafee heads-up.
Tsang has already cashed three dozen times at WSOP tournaments in Las Vegas and the King's Resort in Rozvadov, and his victory came with a payday of $150,460. On top of that, Tsang also receives a package for the World Series of Poker Europe and that very same location certainly brings sweet memories as he was the first player from Hong Kong to win poker's most-coveted prize back in 2018 after topping 187 entries in Event #7: €2,200 Pot Limit Omaha.
During the ongoing festival, he now cashed for the 12th time under his moniker "Tara@0z" and already came close to a second victory just two days ago. In Event #67: $500 Limit Hold'em, Tsang fell shy of the final table and ultimately finished in 12th place.
The game of preference for Tsang is usually Pot-Limit Omaha in which he cashed in four of these events during the festival so far. However, Hold'em can be "Very fun if you win!!!". A time zone advantage in the late stages was not on his side as Tsang played all night long until 9.20 a.m. local time in Hong Kong to claim his second bracelet.
Final Result Event #68: $500 Deepstack NLHE
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (in USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anson "Tara@0z" Tsang | Hong Kong | $150,460* |
| 2 | Mohaiman "Ironman3000" Ashrafee | Bangladesh | $116,809 |
| 3 | Stephen "supernuts21" Holford | United Kingdom | $83,986 |
| 4 | Amir "8ty4calling8" Dvir | Israel | $60,387 |
| 5 | Wong "SMLJtroll" Soon Heong | Hong Kong | $43,419 |
| 6 | Malcolm "HappyWhale" Trayner | Australia | $31,219 |
| 7 | Marc "Face-O" Carola | Mexico | $22,446 |
| 8 | Nobuaki "Sasa JHR" Sasaki | Japan | $16,139 |
| 9 | Eder "BlueMoon" Campana | Brazil | $11,604 |
| Entries: | 2,315 | Total Prize Pool: | $1,099,625 |
*the winner also receives a package for the World Series of Poker Europe
The nine-handed final table featured players from eight different countries and notables included Eder "BlueMoon" Campana, Nobuaki "Sasa JHR" Sasaki, Malcolm "HappyWhale" Trayner and Stephen "supernuts21" Holford. Runner-up Mohaiman "Ironman3000" Ashrafee narrowly missed out on a second WSOP bracelet for his home country of Bangladesh as Ahmad Saifuddin won a $2,000 Limit Hold'em event at the 2007 WSOP.
Tsang entered as the chip leader and knocked out four of his eight opponents to never surrender the top spot at any point even though Ashrafee came as close as one big blind for one hand during the heads-up battle.
The Race to the Money and Beyond
Throughout the four hours of late registration, the field size grew by the minute as hundreds of poker enthusiasts from all over the world joined the action while many others busted, re-entered and tested their fortune once more. Some of those that failed to make the cut for the payouts were Conor Beresford, Bruno Volkmann, Paul Teoh, Martin Zamani, Steven van Zadelhoff, James Chen, Mike McDonald, Gianluca Speranza and Parker Talbot.
Hand-for-hand play only lasted a few hands and a double elimination let the bubble burst when "MapleBear" and Rob "Livia" Hollink both fell to Jonas "resilience32" Gaul. Hollink had more chips and secured the min-cash.
Soon after the floodgates opened as dozens of players departed in a matter of minutes and that pace remained the same for an extended period. GGPoker ambassador Daniel Negreanu notched up another WSOP result but ran with eights into queens to settle for the min cash. He was soon joined on the rail by Timur Margolin, Christian Rudolph, Joao Vieira, Chris Oliver, Marcelo Jakovljevic Pudla and Vanessa Kade to mention just a few.
Tobias "Whooop" Peters lost a flip with tens against the ace-queen of Ramon "Ritza" Miquel Munoz and nearly at the same time, Fabrizio "UknowWhoIam" Gonzalez ran with ace-queen into ace-king. They would be just a few of many notables who secured a pay jump but fell short of the top 100.
Unstoppable Tsang Jumps Into the Lead
With fewer than 50 players remaining, Anson "tara@0z" Tsang suddenly emerged at the top of the leaderboard. In quick succession he notched up two massive pots by eliminating Vishal "bhishm" Tulsyan and Lianghong "lilianghong" Li when he held a full house both times. Tsang also prevailed with kings against the ace-eight for an open-ended straight draw of Chirag "Umeshbhai" Sodha and was the run-away chip leader.
Only Amir "8ty4calling8" Dvir was able to get close to Tsang and even claimed the lead on the final three tables as they both took their turns by sending shorter stacks to the rail. Natural8 ambassador Thai Ha was, however, not among their victims as he failed to get there with ace-ten against the ace-king of "wahmodijiwah" and bowed out in 20th place.
The race to the final table saw Tsang and Dvir back in the driver's seat and some notables such as Alejo "Hugo_Ronzi" Castellazzi, Justin "LappyPoker" Lapka and Brian "Timeout20" Oshust fell short of the final table.
Final Table Action
There was already an all-in and call in the second hand but Stephen "supernuts21" Holford survived to double. Instead it was Eder "BlueMoon" Campana that called a shove by Tsang with ace-four, who flopped the nut straight with ten-nine suited. Holford then knocked out Nobuaki "Sasa JHR" Sasaki with ace-king versus ace-queen and went from short stack to third in chips. The next two eliminations followed in quick succession and five remained with Tsang still in a comfortable lead.
Wong "SMLJtroll" Soon Heong came up short with eight-seven suited versus ace-king as Holford earned another knockout but from there on out it was all about Tsang's aggression, which led to a commanding lead. Dvir succumbed to it in a matter of minutes and Holford was also left short when he paid off Tsang.
For Holford the end came in third place when he could not solve a kicker problem with ace-seven against the ace-queen of Ashrafee. While Tsang held a big lead when entering heads-up, it still took more than 40 minutes to accumulate all the chips. Ashrafee even came within one big blind but then lost several big pots to drop all the way down to 15 blinds. Ultimately, Ashrafee jammed queen-jack into king-queen and Tsang's final table run good was crowned with the nut straight on the flop.
A busy Sunday schedule awaits on the GGNetwork with starting days for the $5,000 Main Event as well as three WSOP bracelet events.This includes Day 1 of the highly anticipated Event #70: $25,000 NLH POKER PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP, which comes with a guaranteed prize pool of $10 million. The PokerNews team will provide updates of all tournaments!