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.
