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BRIT LOWBALL NOVICE TAKES DOWN WSOP BRACELET (Update)

Source: bluffed.net


Matt Perrins takes on the veterans and wins

The young Brit player Matt Perrins barely knew how to play No Limit 2-7 Lowball when he flew into Las Vegas this week, yet on the sixth day of the World Series of Poker he was able to take down Event 9, the $1,500 buy-in No-Limit 2-7 Lowball competition, against an entry field of 275 that included veterans like second placed Chris Bjorin, a two-bracelet WSOP winner.

Perrins did this by watching Lowball action on Youtube and playing a number of hands before the event, using his considerable live and online tournament experience to develop an aggressive and, as it turned out, effective strategy for the game.

To be honest, Day 1 the first three or four hours, I didn't really know what was going on here, Perrins confessed after winning the bracelet and $102 105. I kept speaking to mates what to do here, what to do here. As the tournament got deeper, it was kind of similar to Hold'em where opening a lot of pot and three-betting wins you a lot of pots.

Perrins, who has made over $500 000 in online tournaments, mainly at Full Tilt, is no stranger to six-figure live tournament wins either. In the IPT Venezia he won $211 808, and in the EPT Grand Final he picked up $133 127, his top earnings among an impressively growing number of cashes in international competitions.

Day 3 of the Lowball event started with 73 surivors and ended in a final table Monday night with Perrins leading in chip counts. The young Brit managed largely to retain his domination throughout the remainder of the event, which ended when he beat Bjorin in a heads up that lasted just over an hour.

Commentators noted that with players like Bernard Lee, Chris Bjorin, Thomas Fuller, Josh Brikis, Robin Rightmire, and Jason Mercier, the final table was one of the strongest so far in this Series.

In other events, the 623 combined field of first day survivors in event 8 - the $1000 buy-in NLHE that attracted an original field of 4 178 - was still very much in progress when went to press in the early hours of Tuesday morning Las Vegas time.

93 players remained at Level 17, with Jon Turner holding a one hundred thousand chip lead over nearest rival Hunter Frey, and everyone happy to be securely inside the money bubble, which triggered at position 423.

It's still anyone's bracelet as the field competes vigorously for the lion's share of that $3.76 million prize pool.

Event 10 - the $1500 buy-in NLHE Six Handed - kicked off with 1920 players in a field that included Humberto Brenes, Justin Young, WSOP champ Jerry Yang, Adam Junglen, WSOP champ Greg Raymer, David Pham, Dutch Boyd, Bill Chen, Jennifer Tilly, Faraz Jaka, Amit Makhija and Chad Batista.

Entries were up 257 on last year's event, generating a prize pool of $2.59 million.

By the early hours of Tuesday morning 191 players were left at level 10, with Anthony Spinella in the lead, closely pursued by Ryan Welch.

Event 11 - the $10,000 buy-in Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship also got underway with 202 entries, among them Carlos Mortenson, John Juanda, Men Nguyen, Dan Kelly, Jean-Robert Bellande, Barry Greenstein, Robert Mizrachi, Freddy Deeb and George Lind, Richard Ashby, Steve Billirakis, Vanessa Selbst and many other respected players.

The competition will be keen for the best of the $1.9 million prize pool, and by early morning Tuesday Daniel Negreanu led a pack whittled down to 178 players, closely chased by Allen Bari and 2025 WSOP November Niner Eric Buchman.

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