Michael Moore outlasted a stacked final table to win Event 37, a $5,000 Limit Hold’em tournament, and earn his first gold bracelet early Sunday morning.
The man they call "Big Store" has been around the World Series of Poker for some time, most notably finishing tenth in the 1995 Main Event, but didn’t bring the accolades to the table that many of his fellow final tablists did. Still though, Moore persevered and beat out Gabriel Nassif heads-up to cash in $211,743.
Moore’s background is about as unique as they come. He is a poker player and artist from South Dakota and calling his hometown of Agar "small" would be the understatement of the year — it has a population of 77. He learned to play poker from his mother at the age of 4. She taught him the ins and outs of the game as a way for her to improve her own skill. Additionally, Moore is a veteran of Vietnam where he served as a marine from 1968 to 1970.
Nevermind his background and nevermind his bracelets or lackthereof, Moore drew on many years experience to outlast a star-studded final table and score his first gold bracelet in the prestigious $5,000 buy-in event.
Event 37, a $5,000 Limit Hold’em event, is the highest buy-in Limit event on the 2013 schedule. The tournament drew 170 players generating a prize pool of $799,000. The top 18 finishers in this stacked field earned a payday. Some of the notables who made the money but missed out on the final table were two-time bracelet winner Brock Parker (18th), five-time bracelet winner David Chiu (17th), bracelet winner Brent Wheeler (15th), and Bruno Fitoussi (13th).
The final table was packed with some of the most accomplished Limit Hold’em players in the world, including Greg “FBT” Mueller. The two-time bracelet winner was making his third final table appearance of the summer, putting him in elite company with David “Bakes” Baker and Matthew Ashton for the most final tables thus far. After taking third in both the $2,500 Eight-Game and $5,000 Limit Hold’em event, Mueller posted an eighth place finish here. This is the third time Mueller has final tabled this event. He made the top nine in 2005 and won the event in 2009.
Mueller wasn’t the only player at the final table who had been here before either. Both Gabriel Nassif and Dom Denotaristefani (6th) have final tabled this event previously as well.
In addition to Mueller, the final table also featured two bracelet winners, Ronnie Bardah (3rd) and Todd Witteles (5th), both of whom won their bracelets in Limit Hold’em events as well. Young pros Ben Yu (7th) and Justin Bonomo (9th) were also in the line-up, as was the 1995 WSOP Main Event final table bubble boy, Michael Moore.
Here are the final table results from the $5,000 Limit Hold’em event:
1st: Michael Moore – $211,743
2nd: Gabriel Nassif – $130,852
3rd: Ronnie Bardah – $94,793
4th: Brian Aleksa – $69,968
5th: Todd Witteles – $52,582
6th: Domenico Denotaristefani – $40,205
7th: Benjamin Yu – $31,264
8th: Greg Mueller – $24,721
9th: Justin Bonomo – $19,863
