All smiles at the final table as ten of the best tournament players in Costa Rica square off in the finale Casinos Europa Invitational $100,000.00 No Limit Hold Em Tournment
By Rich Wilens
Beautiful Catalina Sanchez beaming a smile ear to ear just to be at the final table is the first to push all in. Howard Andrews calls with a 3 5 as Catalina shows 10 4. Flop comes J 2 4, Turn is a 5 and a river 2. Catalina leaves smiling with 10th place.
Next up World Champion Alex Brenes sees a Q 10 in the hole and pushes. Francisco Fonseca calls with an A K and the Costa Ricans battle. 9 4 6 is the flop, turn J and river 7 for an ace high that sends Alex packing with another final table appearance and 9th place.
Eyad Ballout 9 7 of hearts was enough to go and Danny Schechter´s A Q was good enough as the flop is 5 3 6 turning a K then an A.
Howard Tahoe Andrews with a pair of three´s (3 3 ) says lets go and is called by Francisco Fonseca with a K 9. Here we go with the flop 9 7 5, turn Q and a 4 on the river. Nines win and a seventh place finish for Tahoe Andrews.
Eight seat Brian Green likes A K. Two seat Jason Bryce loves AA. Ummmmm. 5 10 2 3 3 and Brian Green is the 6th place winner.
Fifth place is at stake Sousha Huijers J J is called by Jason Bryce´s A K. Flop is 8 5 2 turn A and a 9. Sousha is 5th
Jason is hot and eyeballs an A Q. With a trap bet in the making, Danny Schechter makes his move over the top with an all in pair of sevens (7 7 ). Jason can´t wait to push all in. Flop is 6 6 A Turn Q river 6 and Danny goes home 4th while Jason is collecting chips.
James Hoepner waited with the low chip count before calling all in with A J. Jason Bryce with almost 10 times the chips call with A 9. Here we go as 5 9 5 6 10 hits the board. Jason adds to his chips. James is third.
Break time for 5 minutes. Time for heads up with Jason Bryce with a 5 to 1 chip lead over Costa Rica home town hero Francisco Fonseca takes the first hand. The crowd goes nutz. Can Francisco pull it off. Well.……J J for Francisco and shoves in the stack. Mr. Bryce tried not to get to excited with his A K. Tried I said but jumped up and showed A K. The crowd was screaming for Francisco with every turn of the card. Jack, Jack Jack as the flop comes 2 8 2. Turn is is the King. River is a 4 and our winner is Jason Bryce.
The voice of poker (www.voiceofpoker.com ) was there giving a play by play and did an excellent job. You can hear the final table play by play on their web site. Photo credit goes to them as well.
It was the most wonderful five tournaments I have ever played in. They will do it again in June with the Linda Johnson Challenge. We shall see you there.
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