Two more World Series of Poker winners were crowned yesterday as Mitchell Towner took down Event #41: $1500 MONSTER Stack No-Limit Hold’em and Loren Klein won Event #45: $1500 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha.
Can dreams really come true? If you are Mitchell Towner you may well think so.
Towner is a college professor from the University of Arizona who yesterday collected a monster prize of $1,120,196 as he bested the 6927 player field for the title, gold bracelet and the life-changing sum of prize money in Event #41—despite being one of the underdogs of the competition.
This is the first time the poker novice has cashed in a poker tournament of any kind.
“I’ve only played in like two events that [had] buy ins of more than $100,” Towner told reporters. “I want to give a shout out to some of the podcast guys, and the television coverage I saw on EPT events and others where they talk about hands. I’m like a casual fan who invests maybe an hour a week in this….I really don’t play poker.”
Dorian Rios finished as runner up earning $692,029.
Recap: Event #45: $1500 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha.
Loren Klein, a poker pro from Northern Nevada, won the first bracelet of his career beating 918 other players in Event #45. He took home $241,427 in prize winnings—making it the biggest win of his career that spans nearly a decade. Klein took the final pot from Dmitry Savelyev, from San Bruno, CA who finished as the runner up—Savelyev’s share of the prize pool was $149,177.
Klien said upon his win: “It’s about money. It’s about glory. It’s about bracelets. I guess I like them all.”
With another bracelet on his mind Klein went on to say that: “I’ll be playing the Pot Limit Omaha tomorrow.” Klein has now cashed 23 times at the WSOP.
Events To Watch Today
Event #44: $1000 No-Limit Hold’em will go into an unscheduled fourth day of play in a bid to crown its winner today. Wenlong Jin will go head to head with Steven Wolansky to battle for the first place prize of $298,849—the runner up will bag $184,631.
Event #46: $1500 BOUNTY No-Limit Hold’em also finishes up today with 36 players still remaining in the field. Leading the pack is bracelet holder and 2012 November Niner, Steve Gee with 1,675,000 chips—closing in is WSOP 2013 Ladies Championship winner Kristen Bicknell with 1,446,000 chips.
The final nine players in Event #47: $10,000 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) Championship will battle it out today. Chris Klodnicki heads into the day as chip leader as he hunts for his first gold bracelet win of his career. Michael Gathy, John Hennigan, JC Tran, Viacheslav Zhukov and Abe Mosseri are also at the final table and have 11 WSOP gold bracelets between them.
