John Fauver Claims Victory in $10K Big O Championship

John Fauver has won his first bracelet in the inaugural $10K Big O Championship, pocketing a $681,998 prize.

The new five-card Omaha variant proved to be a winner last year in a $1,500 tournament and so the organisers decided to bring it back this summer with a $10,000 championship event.

Even with the hefty buy-in, Event #37: $10,000 Big O Championship attracted 332 entries, generating a prize pool of $3,087,600.

Final Action

When the bell rang on the final day, 19 players were sat primed to mount a challenge for the sought after bracelet and top prize of $681,998.

Four hours later there were only eight.

France’s David Benyamine was the unlucky entrant to burst the bubble and miss out on a final table appearance, pocketing a $48,582 prize for ninth place.

Danny Wong was the short stack as the final eight, fresh from missing out to Phil Ivey in the Limit 2-7 Triple Draw.

Surprisingly, he lasted quite a while but in the end failed to chip up enough to avoid an early elimination.

The stacks were now short enough to see players quickly falling by the wayside.

Farid Jattin from Colombia, and the only non-American at the table, was the man to send Dylan Weisman home after his full wrap came in to beat Weisman’s top pair top kicker.

The Colombian was now holding more than half of the chips and everything was looking good. But then, as can happen in this game, variance struck and John Fauver put together a string of four double-ups through him and took control.

Jattin then proceeded to drift without any further success and he was out in fourth only a week after he finished runner-up in the $5,000 PLO event.

Nitesh Rawtani and Calvin Anderson now needed to do something to stop Fauver running away with it but they ended up colliding with each other.

Rawtani thought his bottom two with a flush draw as back up might be good enough but Anderson rivered a better two pair and Rawtani was sent to the rail.

Fauver now only held a slight lead but it grew quickly. Anderson thought he was about to turn the tables with aces and a gutshot only to run into top set.

But then the gutshot came in on the turn, devastatingly counterfeited by the river pairing to board to give Fauver the bracelet.