2025 WSOPC Calgary Oct – Event #14: $400 PLO Bounty

Heads up was not a lengthy affair, though getting there took a while. In the end, they played about 11 hours in the PLO Bounty, and action stalled a bit when they got to the final table, after a fairly brisk pace through most of the game.

Matt Hall wasn;t always the FT big stack, but he was never really in any danger either. Fangren Yu (6th, $2,666) was the early leader, but one of the reasons the FT took so long was that in the early stages, short stacks just wouldn’t bust. Yu was looking to bust players, but ended up doubling a few shorties.

When they were six-handed, Wenzheng Zhang was the leader, with Hall about 200k behind. The Zhang fell victim to the doubling problem, as well as Hall’s attacks, and Hall had nearly half the chips in play five ways. Runner-up Sunni Pil then got a double through him with aces up to keep her alive.

Kyle Bonazzo sent Zhang out in fifth when he rivered a pair of queens to cap the pocket fives of Zhang. Hall then flopped it against D Nguyen to get them three-handed by sending Nguyen packing. The action was moving quickly at that point, with around 40 big blinds in play.

Bonazzo ended his run in third when Hall flopped a flush draw against him, and hit the clubs on the river to take a big lead into heads up against Pil.

It was just a couple of hands before the final confrontation. The money went in on a flop where Pil flopped two pair while Hall had an overpair to the board. Pil looked set to double and make a game of it, but running aces counterfeited her two pair and sent the ring to Hall.

Hall is a pretty familiar face in the money here at Deerfoot, but this is the first time he’s made it to the top spot for a ring. Even more, he confessed after the game that he’s not even really a PLO player.

After an early exit from Day 2 of the Flip & Go for $632, he decided that he may as well jump into the four-card game, despite not being very experienced in it. It seems to have been a pretty decent decision, though, as he managed to pick up his first Circuit ring 11 hours later.

Hall didn;t have a rail during the game, but he brought some friends to the winner’s photo with him, albeit virtually. Right after he won, he got on a video chat with several of his friends, and they joined him virtually in the photo commemorating his win.

By the time they were three-handed, the stacks were very short, and Kyle Bonazzo shoved his button with [invalid notations] and Matt Hall called it off from the big stack and big blind with Q♣J♦10♠8♣.

Hall flopped a club draw and hit the clubs on the river on a 7♣6♣K♠9♥K♣ runout. Bonazzo only got 2 bounties tonight, but he was still pretty happy to make it to 3rd place.

Matt Hall flopped the boat with deuce-three-four-ten on a deuce-three-three flop to send D Nguyen out in 4th place. Nguyen got four bounties to add to his prizes.

Sunni Pil just got a double when she potted, and Kyle Bonazzo repotted to put her in. She called with kings with an ace-four against ace-king-jack-three. Pil hit a set of kings on the flop and doubled.

Kyle Bonazzo found a queen on the river to cap the pocket fives for Wenzheng Zhang and sent him out in 4th. The action is moving quickly now, and Sunni Pil recently got two doubles, but Matt Hall still looks to be leading. With the blinds at 75k/150k/150k, there aren’t much more than 40 big blinds in play 4 ways.

Sunni Pil got a double through Matt Hall when she hit two pair, aces and eights.

Matt Hall is leading now with more than 3 million to play with. He just picked up two pots from Wenzheng Zhang, including the most recent, where he flopped a set of nines.

D Nguyen raised to 400k from the hijack, and Fangren Yu reshoved a bit more from the cutoff. Nguyen called it off, and had Yu’s suits covered, but Yu was live with 6♦5♠5♠3♦ against K♦J♦10♠6♠.

The board of Q♠9♥J♠J♣J♥ gave Nguyen the quad jacks and the win. Yu picked up an extra $1,100 in bounties today.

Wenzheng Zhang is the leader as Level 28 begins with 1.795 million, but that’s not quite 15 big blinds. Matt Hall isn’t far behind and Kyle Bonazzo also has more than a million, but with the big blind at 120k, and 300k going in per round fro each player, the stacks are really short at this point.

D Nguyen shoved the small blind for 270k, and Fangren Yu called from the big. Neither had a great hand, with Nguyen on A♦6♥4♣2♥ against J♣5♠4♠2♦ for Yu. Nguyen hit two pair on the 8♠6♣10♦K♣4♦ runout and got the double.

They are down to 6 now after Roneen Shaffer couldn’t hold against Matt Hall. She had A♦7♠7♣6♦ against J♣J♦4♦3♣ for Hall.

Hall flopped a set of jacks while Shaffer flopped her ace and turned a six for two pair, but it wasn’t enough.

Fangren Yu raised to 300k from the cutoff and Matt Hall shoved his button for just under 600k. Yu called after the blinds got out of the way. Hall was on A♣Q♣Q♥3♠ against K♥10♥5♦4♦ for Yu.

They both hit the flop on the 6♣A♦K♠2♥9♦ board, but Hall’s ace was best and he got a double.

Two hands later, Hall raised, and Kyle Bonazzo shoved the small blind. Hall called it off, but was facing A♣A♠10♣4♥ with his K♣10♦7♦7♥. The aces held and Bonazzo got the double.

There are only 66.2 big blinds in play seven-handed, so the average stack is less than 10 bigs now.

James Cruickshank shoved with kings, but ran into the aces of big blind Fangren Yu. The aces held to send Cruickshank out in 8th place tonight.

D Nguyen just got a double from the short stack, and that’s been a theme at this table. While they have lost two shorties so far, the short stack has doubled more often than that.

In this hand, Nguyen shoved his small blind with 170k, and Fangren Yu called from the big. They had virtuall the same hand, with both players on queen-eight-six. The only difference was Yu had an ace, to the king for Nguyen.

Nguyen hit his king on the 2♠K♦9♥5♥10♠ flop, and that was all he needed to survive. “Short stacks won’t die,” joked Yu after the hand.

They are down to 8 after Hari Aujla ended his day in 9th place. I missed the action writing the previous hand, but Aujla was fairly short, even after taking the side pot.

Wenzheng Zhang raised to 150k raised the middle and Hari Aujla called from his left before Roneen Shaffer shoved 110k from the small blind. She’d just folded her big blind to drop to that level, but woke up with a hand she could stack off with.

The side action between Zhang and Aujla went to the K♦7♥10♣ flop heads up, where Zhang check-folded to a shove from Aujla, giving Aujla the side pot. Aujla was on a set of tens for the main, but Shaffer was drawing to a straight, and she hit it to take the main pot triple.

Nadra Ghali was the first player off the final table tonight. While I missed the final hand, she’d had just recently doubled up Kyle Bonazzo when his jacks with ace-king single suit held over her ace-queen-ten-four single suit, leaving her with about 200k behind.

They are down to 10 players and setting the final table now. Darren Ferrato bubbled the final table tonight. Stay tuned for final table pictures shortly.

Liyang Tang was the 12th-place finisher tonight, ending his run just before the break. Fangren Yu is the chip leader and the only player over 1 million. Matt Hall and Sunni Pil are running second and third right now.

They are down to 22 left in the PLO Bounty game, with about 5 minutes to play in Level 21. I’m still trying to finish up some work on Day 1b of the Main Event, so I’m not watching the action very closely, but below is a look at the recent prizes, with the full list under the Payouts tab.

Place	Player	Prize
13	Fraezor Caldwell	$801
14	Erich Luebrke	$685
15	Danny Park	$685
16	Behnam Esfahanizadeh	$685
17	Joshua Molnar	$685
18	Bradley Ellis	$604
19	Derek Arnold	$604
20	Ron Lauzon	$604
21	Rhonda-Lee Shepek	$604
22	David Cairns	$604
23	Michael Wo	$604
24	Rishi Makkar	$604

The PLO Bounty game is down to 24 left now, and deep into the money. There were 331 entries for the game, which put $76,130 into the prize pool plus an extra $33,100 in bounties.

Players started getting paid at 50th place. Full prizes are listed under the payouts tab, but below is a look at the cashers down to 25th place.

Place	Player	Prize
25	Sepehr Mogharei	$604
26	Zackery Farthing	$604
27	Ying Luo	$549
28	Kristin Laverty	$549
29	Kenneth Macneal	$549
30	Ye Zhang	$549
31	Ferida Balic	$549
32	Ryan Smith	$549
33	James Chalcroft	$549
34	Stefan Maloney	$549
35	Harman Jassal	$549
36	Calvin Lake	$523
37	Guneet Singh	$523
38	Justin Brand	$523
39	Vincent Lam	$523
40	Andrew Bonnard	$523
41	Michael Elborn	$523
42	Charles Rousselle	$523
43	Haven Taylor	$523
44	Brandon Chow	$523
45	Darren Hamre	$523
46	Daniel Mayo	$523
47	Kyle Cook	$523
48	Ayed Shweihat	$523
49	Chad Hallett	$523
50	Robert Cicchelli	$523

It’s a big field on the side tonight, with 213 entries in Level 4. The first break of the day follows Level 6 in just less than 50 minutes, with entries open for another three levels after that.

The PLO Bounty is just underway with 84 entries on the board to start the game. Entries are open for a bit less than 3.5 hours, and I expect this field to at least double from the current numbers.

2025 WSOPC Calgary Oct – Event #14: $400 PLO Bounty ($230 + $100 + $70)

The side game on Friday night is the PLO Bounty. For $400, players start with 20k in chips for 20-minute levels all night. $100 of the buy-in goes to the bounty, with the rest divided by the top 15% of the field at the end of the night. This is a flat bounty structure, so bounties are $100 throughout the game.

The action kicks off at 6 PM, and entries are open for 9 levels. Including the breaks, that should put the last chance to enter at about 9:30 PM.

I won’t be watching this one until later in the evening, once the Flip & Go Day 2 finishes, but I expect this to go pretty late, so I should get a fair amount of action in this one later on.

Heads up was not a lengthy affair, though getting there took a while. In the end, they played about 11 hours in the PLO Bounty, and action stalled a bit when they got to the final table, after a fairly brisk pace through most of the game.

Matt Hall wasn;t always the FT big stack, but he was never really in any danger either. Fangren Yu (6th, $2,666) was the early leader, but one of the reasons the FT took so long was that in the early stages, short stacks just wouldn’t bust. Yu was looking to bust players, but ended up doubling a few shorties.

When they were six-handed, Wenzheng Zhang was the leader, with Hall about 200k behind. The Zhang fell victim to the doubling problem, as well as Hall’s attacks, and Hall had nearly half the chips in play five ways. Runner-up Sunni Pil then got a double through him with aces up to keep her alive.

Kyle Bonazzo sent Zhang out in fifth when he rivered a pair of queens to cap the pocket fives of Zhang. Hall then flopped it against D Nguyen to get them three-handed by sending Nguyen packing. The action was moving quickly at that point, with around 40 big blinds in play.

Bonazzo ended his run in third when Hall flopped a flush draw against him, and hit the clubs on the river to take a big lead into heads up against Pil.

It was just a couple of hands before the final confrontation. The money went in on a flop where Pil flopped two pair while Hall had an overpair to the board. Pil looked set to double and make a game of it, but running aces counterfeited her two pair and sent the ring to Hall.

Hall is a pretty familiar face in the money here at Deerfoot, but this is the first time he’s made it to the top spot for a ring. Even more, he confessed after the game that he’s not even really a PLO player.

After an early exit from Day 2 of the Flip & Go for $632, he decided that he may as well jump into the four-card game, despite not being very experienced in it. It seems to have been a pretty decent decision, though, as he managed to pick up his first Circuit ring 11 hours later.

Hall didn;t have a rail during the game, but he brought some friends to the winner’s photo with him, albeit virtually. Right after he won, he got on a video chat with several of his friends, and they joined him virtually in the photo commemorating his win.

By the time they were three-handed, the stacks were very short, and Kyle Bonazzo shoved his button with [invalid notations] and Matt Hall called it off from the big stack and big blind with Q♣J♦10♠8♣.

Hall flopped a club draw and hit the clubs on the river on a 7♣6♣K♠9♥K♣ runout. Bonazzo only got 2 bounties tonight, but he was still pretty happy to make it to 3rd place.

Matt Hall flopped the boat with deuce-three-four-ten on a deuce-three-three flop to send D Nguyen out in 4th place. Nguyen got four bounties to add to his prizes.

Sunni Pil just got a double when she potted, and Kyle Bonazzo repotted to put her in. She called with kings with an ace-four against ace-king-jack-three. Pil hit a set of kings on the flop and doubled.

Kyle Bonazzo found a queen on the river to cap the pocket fives for Wenzheng Zhang and sent him out in 4th. The action is moving quickly now, and Sunni Pil recently got two doubles, but Matt Hall still looks to be leading. With the blinds at 75k/150k/150k, there aren’t much more than 40 big blinds in play 4 ways.

Sunni Pil got a double through Matt Hall when she hit two pair, aces and eights.

Matt Hall is leading now with more than 3 million to play with. He just picked up two pots from Wenzheng Zhang, including the most recent, where he flopped a set of nines.

D Nguyen raised to 400k from the hijack, and Fangren Yu reshoved a bit more from the cutoff. Nguyen called it off, and had Yu’s suits covered, but Yu was live with 6♦5♠5♠3♦ against K♦J♦10♠6♠.

The board of Q♠9♥J♠J♣J♥ gave Nguyen the quad jacks and the win. Yu picked up an extra $1,100 in bounties today.

Wenzheng Zhang is the leader as Level 28 begins with 1.795 million, but that’s not quite 15 big blinds. Matt Hall isn’t far behind and Kyle Bonazzo also has more than a million, but with the big blind at 120k, and 300k going in per round fro each player, the stacks are really short at this point.

D Nguyen shoved the small blind for 270k, and Fangren Yu called from the big. Neither had a great hand, with Nguyen on A♦6♥4♣2♥ against J♣5♠4♠2♦ for Yu. Nguyen hit two pair on the 8♠6♣10♦K♣4♦ runout and got the double.

They are down to 6 now after Roneen Shaffer couldn’t hold against Matt Hall. She had A♦7♠7♣6♦ against J♣J♦4♦3♣ for Hall.

Hall flopped a set of jacks while Shaffer flopped her ace and turned a six for two pair, but it wasn’t enough.

Fangren Yu raised to 300k from the cutoff and Matt Hall shoved his button for just under 600k. Yu called after the blinds got out of the way. Hall was on A♣Q♣Q♥3♠ against K♥10♥5♦4♦ for Yu.

They both hit the flop on the 6♣A♦K♠2♥9♦ board, but Hall’s ace was best and he got a double.

Two hands later, Hall raised, and Kyle Bonazzo shoved the small blind. Hall called it off, but was facing A♣A♠10♣4♥ with his K♣10♦7♦7♥. The aces held and Bonazzo got the double.

There are only 66.2 big blinds in play seven-handed, so the average stack is less than 10 bigs now.

James Cruickshank shoved with kings, but ran into the aces of big blind Fangren Yu. The aces held to send Cruickshank out in 8th place tonight.

D Nguyen just got a double from the short stack, and that’s been a theme at this table. While they have lost two shorties so far, the short stack has doubled more often than that.

In this hand, Nguyen shoved his small blind with 170k, and Fangren Yu called from the big. They had virtuall the same hand, with both players on queen-eight-six. The only difference was Yu had an ace, to the king for Nguyen.

Nguyen hit his king on the 2♠K♦9♥5♥10♠ flop, and that was all he needed to survive. “Short stacks won’t die,” joked Yu after the hand.

They are down to 8 after Hari Aujla ended his day in 9th place. I missed the action writing the previous hand, but Aujla was fairly short, even after taking the side pot.

Wenzheng Zhang raised to 150k raised the middle and Hari Aujla called from his left before Roneen Shaffer shoved 110k from the small blind. She’d just folded her big blind to drop to that level, but woke up with a hand she could stack off with.

The side action between Zhang and Aujla went to the K♦7♥10♣ flop heads up, where Zhang check-folded to a shove from Aujla, giving Aujla the side pot. Aujla was on a set of tens for the main, but Shaffer was drawing to a straight, and she hit it to take the main pot triple.

Nadra Ghali was the first player off the final table tonight. While I missed the final hand, she’d had just recently doubled up Kyle Bonazzo when his jacks with ace-king single suit held over her ace-queen-ten-four single suit, leaving her with about 200k behind.

They are down to 10 players and setting the final table now. Darren Ferrato bubbled the final table tonight. Stay tuned for final table pictures shortly.

Liyang Tang was the 12th-place finisher tonight, ending his run just before the break. Fangren Yu is the chip leader and the only player over 1 million. Matt Hall and Sunni Pil are running second and third right now.

They are down to 22 left in the PLO Bounty game, with about 5 minutes to play in Level 21. I’m still trying to finish up some work on Day 1b of the Main Event, so I’m not watching the action very closely, but below is a look at the recent prizes, with the full list under the Payouts tab.

Place	Player	Prize
13	Fraezor Caldwell	$801
14	Erich Luebrke	$685
15	Danny Park	$685
16	Behnam Esfahanizadeh	$685
17	Joshua Molnar	$685
18	Bradley Ellis	$604
19	Derek Arnold	$604
20	Ron Lauzon	$604
21	Rhonda-Lee Shepek	$604
22	David Cairns	$604
23	Michael Wo	$604
24	Rishi Makkar	$604

The PLO Bounty game is down to 24 left now, and deep into the money. There were 331 entries for the game, which put $76,130 into the prize pool plus an extra $33,100 in bounties.

Players started getting paid at 50th place. Full prizes are listed under the payouts tab, but below is a look at the cashers down to 25th place.

Place	Player	Prize
25	Sepehr Mogharei	$604
26	Zackery Farthing	$604
27	Ying Luo	$549
28	Kristin Laverty	$549
29	Kenneth Macneal	$549
30	Ye Zhang	$549
31	Ferida Balic	$549
32	Ryan Smith	$549
33	James Chalcroft	$549
34	Stefan Maloney	$549
35	Harman Jassal	$549
36	Calvin Lake	$523
37	Guneet Singh	$523
38	Justin Brand	$523
39	Vincent Lam	$523
40	Andrew Bonnard	$523
41	Michael Elborn	$523
42	Charles Rousselle	$523
43	Haven Taylor	$523
44	Brandon Chow	$523
45	Darren Hamre	$523
46	Daniel Mayo	$523
47	Kyle Cook	$523
48	Ayed Shweihat	$523
49	Chad Hallett	$523
50	Robert Cicchelli	$523

It’s a big field on the side tonight, with 213 entries in Level 4. The first break of the day follows Level 6 in just less than 50 minutes, with entries open for another three levels after that.

The PLO Bounty is just underway with 84 entries on the board to start the game. Entries are open for a bit less than 3.5 hours, and I expect this field to at least double from the current numbers.

2025 WSOPC Calgary Oct – Event #14: $400 PLO Bounty ($230 + $100 + $70)

The side game on Friday night is the PLO Bounty. For $400, players start with 20k in chips for 20-minute levels all night. $100 of the buy-in goes to the bounty, with the rest divided by the top 15% of the field at the end of the night. This is a flat bounty structure, so bounties are $100 throughout the game.

The action kicks off at 6 PM, and entries are open for 9 levels. Including the breaks, that should put the last chance to enter at about 9:30 PM.

I won’t be watching this one until later in the evening, once the Flip & Go Day 2 finishes, but I expect this to go pretty late, so I should get a fair amount of action in this one later on.