The final race to the first-ever PPPoker World Championship – Main Event title seemed to be more of a continuation of Day 3 with Filipino player Richard Marquez in full command. Marquez once again brought his mighty axe to the table and slashed four players in his path to capture his maiden victory and the PHP 4,850,000 (US$93,000) first place purse.
“I feel great! I feel happy! I feel awesome. Since yesterday I’ve been the chip leader the whole way knocking out many players. I’m thinking, it’s my moment. I can return today and win it.” expressed Marquez after his victory.
According to Marquez, he started feeling the winning vibe in Day 2 after he knocked out WSOP champion Aditya Sushant. His queen-jack cracked aces with a lady showing up both on the flop and turn. At Day 3, Marquez eliminated four of the 16 players to enter today’s final race in the driver’s seat.
The day was a short one. “At the final table, I’m chip leader and I have hands when players shoved. This made it easy for me to call,” said Marquez. Marquez downed Dong Kyoon Seo (6th) with 
over 
. Next to fall to the executioner Marquez was Hans Jurgen Homner whose 
fell to Marquez’s 
turned full house.
After the fall of Mark Gruendemann (4th) to Mike Takayama, the rail full of locals erupted seeing an all Filipino final three lineup.
The cleaner Marquez resumed his hunt for the title. Lester Edoc (3rd) was his next victim. Edoc limp three-bet-shoved only to see his black snowmen 
run into Marquez’s . This brought about the heads up round with Marquez nearly up 2:1 against Takayama. Marquez proceeded to win pot after pot until it was a 5:1 spread. Takayama fell in runner up with 
two pair all in at the flop of 
met a bad beat with Marquez’s 
landing a higher two pair on the turn . The river assured the victory for Marquez.
Final 6 payouts
1st Richard Marquez – PHP 4,850,000
2nd Mike Takayama – PHP 2,716,000
3rd Lester Edoc – PHP 1,649,000
4th Mark Gruendemann – PHP 1,261,000
5th Hans Jurgen Homner – PHP 1,067,000
6th Dong Kyoon Seo – PHP 875,000
You can read up on the action via the Live Updates link below.
Main Event review
The Main Event ran a course of six days, from February 16 to 21. The three starting days drew 383 runners each one contributing PHP 55,000 (US$1,050) to the pot. That turnout however was not enough to reach the guarantee for an overlay to the PHP 20 Million (US$382,000) advertised prize pool.
At the end of the starting days, 130 advanced to Day 2, of that number, only 60 got paid. Day 2 ended with 16 players which was further cut to 6 players in Day 3. The final 6 returned today and the day’s entering chip leader Richard Marquez outshined. He booted four of his opponents and became the first-ever PPWC Main Event champion.
That wraps up our coverage of the PPWC Main Event.
More: PPWC Festival Full Coverage
Tricia David
Tricia David has long experience as a recreational poker player and has been covering poker events since 2010 for numerous outfits in Asia. She spent one year working part time with Poker Portal Asia then became editor and lead writer for all event coverage of the Philippine Poker Tour (PPT). Under the PPT, she overlooked content for their website, and produced live updates on all their events. In addition, she served as the live and online events website content writer for the Asian Poker Tour. Currently, she does live events reporting in Asia for online news site Somuchpoker and is also one of their news contributors.
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