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Ryan Eriquezzo Wins 2019 WSOP Circuit Harrah's Atlantic City Main Event

Poker Pro Tops Field of 357 To Win His Third Ring And $124,397

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Ryan Eriquezzo has won the 2019 World Series of Poker Circuit Harrah’s Atlantic City $1,700 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. The poker pro from Connecticut defeated a field of 357 total entries to win his fourth ring on the WSOP Circuit. He is also the proud owner of a WSOP gold bracelet, which he earned by taking down the 2012 WSOP National Championship. With this latest win, Eriquezzo increased his career live tournament earnings to just shy of $1.6 million.

In addition to the hardware and the money, Eriquezzo was awarded 600 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win. This was his first POY-qualified score of the year, but it alone was enough to see him move inside the top 200 in the overall standings.

Eriquezzo came into the third and final day of this event tied for fourth place in the standings, with Renata Colache holding the chip lead. Colache had her pocket kings cracked by Kurt Lichtman early at the final table. She lost a large chunk of her stack in that hand, and then came up on the wrong side of a preflop coinflip to finish in eighth place ($14,646).

Eriquezzo survived to short-handed play without scoring a knockout and then was able to take over the lead during four-handed action. Kurt Lichtman knocked out Richard Hanheide Jr. in fourth place ($41,613), but then found himself as the next player heading to the rail. He called Eriquezzo’s shove from the small blind with 7Heart Suit7Diamond Suit. Eriquezzo showed the QSpade Suit9Club Suit. The board ran out ASpade Suit9Heart Suit4Club Suit2Heart Suit10Diamond Suit and Lichtman was eliminated in third place ($56,103).

With that Eriquezzo took more than a 3-to-1 chip lead into heads up play against Denis Gnidash. The shorter stack found a quick double up with pocket kings to event things out a bit, but Eriquezzo was able to regain control right away.

In the final hand Eriquezzo min-raised to 120,000 from the button with 8Diamond Suit7Heart Suit and Gnidash called with the 10Club Suit9Heart Suit. The flop brought the 9Spade Suit6Diamond Suit5Heart Suit and Gnidash checked. Eriquezzo bet 160,000. Gnidash shoved for 1,970,000 with his top pair, only to be snap-called by Eriquezzo’s nut straight. The 3Diamond Suit on the turn left Gnidash drawing dead and the 8Club Suit sealed the deal. Gnidash earned $76,904 as the runner-up.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Place Player Earnings (USD) POY Points
1 Ryan Eriquezzo $124,397 600
2 Denis Gnidash $76,904 500
3 Kurt Lichtman $56,103 400
4 Richard Hanheide Jr $41,613 300
5 Ryan McKnight $31,348 250
6 John Forlenza $23,976 200
7 Ross Gottlieb $18,605 150
8 Renata Colache $14,646 100
9 Daniel Park $11,693 50