The second stop of Season 16 took the MSPT to the beautiful Sycuan Casino Resort in San Deigo, California for the inaugural 100 GRAND STACK Festival!
The 21-trophy event series was headlined by the first ever $1,110 buy-in, $300K GTD 100 GRAND STACK Main Event, and a total of 474 entries (114 from Day 1a; 114 from 1b; 50 from Day 1c 148 from 1d; and 47 from Day 1e) were tallied, generating a $458,280 prize pool.
The series hit another milestone for the tour, as over $200,580,000 has now been awarded to date and on Sunday, 50 players returned for Day 2 action with a fast-paced final day, seeing David Berger rise to the top securing his first MSPT title, along with his largest career score of $87,100!
“It feels great,” the newly crowned champ said after his victory, “I made a new year’s resolution to win a trophy I don’t already have, and it feels really good to cross that off in this first month.”
Day 2 Action
The final day came back with all 50 players already in the money, so action kicked right into gear with David "Digger" Vig being the first body to drop followed by Event #3 winner Clint Wolcyn, starting a spree of eliminations.
The next batch of players that followed to the payout desk included the likes of MSPT top casher DJ Buckley, Janet Burke, 2024 Sycuan champ Noel Eicher, and Nissar Quraishi.
With players continuing to make their way to the payout line, four-time MSPT champ Daniel Bekavac was on his quest for a record trying fifth title but hit a few road bumps to take a much early exit than anticipated (33rd Place – $2,520), while defending champ Justin Muse (29th Place - $2,520), Adrian Lopez (28th Place - $2,520) two-time bracelet winner Justin Lapka (26th Place - $3,127) and 2023 Sycuan Regional champ Eddie Pilotin (21st Place - $4,247) all followed him to the payout desk in quick succession.
The fast-paced action continued as Andrew Ostapchenko (19th Place - $4,247), Hesam Samarghandy (17th Place - $4,667), Peter Aran (15th Place - $5,600), Johnny Groat (12th Place - $7,000), and Weizheng Zhong (12th Place - $7,000) all fell on the way to the final table.
Final Table Action
WSOP bracelet winner Brad Gafford went into the final table at the bottom of the chip counts and became the first elimination after he failed to hit live cards against Patrick Roteman while the last lady standing Anastasiia Knapp lost a big flip against Bradley Miller to eventually fall in eighth place.
Start of day chip leader Steve Hoang was in the top three when the final table started but a run of losses led to him being tripped up on the turn in a battle of the blinds against Jerric Jiang, as he made a heartbreaking seventh place exit for $14,934.
After getting a few ladder ups, Roteman finally got his chips in the middle holding a dominating Big Slick to Berger’s suited ace-eight, but a snowman on the river sent ended his run in sixth place for $19,143.
The last elimination propelled Berger to the top of the counts which eventually led to him having an elimination spree which started with 2021 Sycuan Regional champ Armando Mesina.
A classic race saw Berger’s pair of sixes hold strong to send Mesina home in fifth-place ($25,201) while he followed that by out-kicking Dillon Najor to the curb in fourth place for $33,601.
Berger’s relentless spree continued when he picked-up a pair of hit ladies that tripped-up Jerric Jiang in third place ($44,428) setting the stage for the heads-up match.
The heads-up battle saw Berger hold a 2:1 chip advantage over Miller, which prompted him to make quick ICM proposal and it wasn’t long before it was agreed upon as Miller took home $74,883 for his efforts while Berger walked away with his largest career score of $87,100 along with the title!
This wraps up our coverage for this event but Season 16 of the MSPT continues as we head to Bally’s Black Hawk next (January 23rd - 27th) and our reporting team will be on hand providing updates for the $300K GTD $1,110 Main Event so make sure to come back!