July 20, 2008
Online Pro Mike Watson Wins WPT Bellagio Cup
No Actual Cups Were Awarded
The World Poker Tour kicked off its seventh season with the Bellagio Cup at Bellagio (go figure). The powers-that-be raised the buy-in to $15K in the hopes of getting a field of pros, and that’s what happened. A total of 446 players anted up to create a prize pool of $6,489,300 with a whopping $1,673,700 first prize. (The prize money was not given away in a cup, which would have been a creative idea, right? C’mon, guys. A WPT bracelet and a Bellagio Cup bracelet? A gold cup - use your imagination!)
Anyway, the final table looked promising… Several pros made it, and it looked like David Benyamine was going to take it down and add two bracelets (ugh) to the WSOP bracelet he won this year. But 24-year old online pro Mike “SirWatts” Watson’s luck skillful play got in the way, and a brand new name was added to the list of WPT millionaires. The action will be shown - dates unknown - on Fox Sports.
The final table results were as follows:
1st: Mike “SirWatts” Watson - $1,673,770
2nd: David Benyamine - $840,295
3rd: Luke Staudenmaier - $452,465
4th: Ralph Perry - $290,900
5th: John “The Razor” Phan - $193,915
6th: Gabe Thaler - $129,275
Next stop on the World Poker Tour: The Bike in Los Angeles at the end of August.
