It was tenth time lucky for Michael Rocco at the World Series of Poker last night as he finally closed out a final table, scooping the $10k 6-Handed NLH Championship for $924,922 and his maiden WSOP gold.
Event #94: $10,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Some 502 entries had been shorn down to just 28 players by the start of play yesterday, with Spanish crusher Adrian Mateos and Swedish beast Viktor Blom holding top 10 stacks.
Bruno Volkmann, Daniel Smiljkovic, Alejandro Lococo and Nicky Palma all fell by the wayside, and then Blom exited after a button shove against overnight chip leader Mustafov’s UTG open…
Viktor Blom: 7♥ 7♦
Fahredin Mustafov: 10♦ 10♣
Flop: J♦ 5♠ 5♥
Turn: K♥
River: J♠
The board bricking meant still no WSOP gold for one of the game’s all-time legends.
Mustafov himself fell in 7th when he ran a big ace into defending champ Alexandre Reard’s pocket jacks and lost the race, while Mateos’ typically deep run ended in 5th spot when nines turned out to be no good against ace-nine.
Reard’s hot streak continued, ousting Aram Zobian in fourth place and then felling Aleks Dimitrov in a two pair vs two pair cooler.
Heads-up ought to have carried over to the following day, but a ‘courtesy level’ allowed Rocco to close out the win, first spiking a set on the flop with 7s against 8s and then repeating the Dimitrov KO…
Alexandre Reard: Q♠ 5♠
Michael Rocco: 4♠ 3♦
Flop: 4♣ Q♦ 5♥
Turn: 3♠
Again, Rocco had spiked two pair on the turn against the flopped version, but this time was behind, although all the chips went in anyway. Until, that is…
River: 3♥
So close for Reard, but also a monkey off Rocco’s back…
Event #94: $10,000 Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em Championship Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Michael Rocco | USA | $924,922 |
| 2 | Alexandre Reard | France | $610,013 |
| 3 | Aleks Dimitrov | Bulgaria | $410,657 |
| 4 | Aram Zobian | USA | $282,302 |
| 5 | Adrian Mateos | Spain | $198,261 |
| 6 | Egor Procop | Moldova | $142,316 |
Rocco revealed that playing hard and studying harder had paid off, telling reporters: “I woke up at four in the morning for 98 days straight and studied for six hours daily. I feel like it helped me at this tournament.”
He added: “I was quite short most of the time. I think I would have played a few hands differently had I not studied. It ended up working out.”
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