West Palm Beach, FL (Feb. 24) – It’s a very long way from the perilous battlefields of Iraq to the green felt of a final table at a WSOP Circuit event.
But Timothy Burt knows the journey well. He has made the passage admirably, morphing from battled-tested soldier into poker champion. The former U.S. Army tank gunner served proudly in Iraq from 2003 through 2005. Afterward, he returned home and started playing poker, both in live games and online. Burt enjoyed his first tournament in-the-money finish five years ago. Since then, he has won nine major tournaments, including at victory at the most recent World Series of Poker Circuit tournament held at the Palm Beach Kennel Club.
Burt is a 30-year-old professional poker player from Grenada, MS. He collected $14,375 in prize money for first place. He was also presented with his second career WSOP Circuit gold ring, the coveted prize awarded to all winners in poker’s biggest and most prestigious national tournament series. Note: Burt also won a gold ring at the Harrah’s New Orleans WSOP Satellite event held in December 2010, but that is not officially counted in WSOP Circuit standings. Only the May series applies.
This was the sixth of ten gold ring events at this year’s inaugural WSOP Circuit Palm Beach series. The $345 buy-in Omaha High-Low Split tournament attracted a strong field totaling 192 entries. The prize pool amounted to $55,872. The top 18 finishers (two tables) collected prize money.
On the first day of play, the field size was reduced from 192 starters down to 13 survivors. On the second day, players took their seats at the final table next to the grandstand overlooking the racetrack. There were two former WSOP gold bracelet winners among the final nine. The seating order and starting chip counts were as follows:
SEAT 1: Aaron Lambert (Chapin, SC) 928,000 in chips
SEAT 2: Tom Schneider (Scottsdale, AZ) – 9,000 in chips
SEAT 3: Dennis Napel (Dubuque, IA) – 244,000 in chips
SEAT 4: “Captain” Tom Franklin (Gulfport, MS) – 160,000 in chips
SEAT 5: Jeff Green (Ft. Meyers, FL) – 49,000 in chips
SEAT 6: Michael Boseman (Deltona, FL) – 88,000 in chips
SEAT 7: Richard Cleveland (Boynton Beach, FL) – 131,000 in chips
SEAT 8: Marc Levy (Boynton Beach, FL) – 141,000 in chips
SEAT 9: Timothy Burt (Grenada, MS) – 213,000 in chips
Players were eliminated in the following order:
9th Place – Tom Schneider arrived at the final table with an embarrassingly low number of chips. His “stack” was only 9,000 with betting limits at 10,000-20,000. Even a man with the extraordinary poker skills of Schneider was unable to overcome such a burdensome handicap. Schneider predictably exited first from the final table and collected $1,294. Schneider is best remembered as the WSOP “Player of the Year” back in 2007, which now seems like a distant memory.
8th Place – Marc Levy started off with 15 times the number of chips as Schneider, but lasted only about 30 minutes longer. He missed his draw and exited in eight place, which paid $1,622. But at least he avoided total humiliation by outlasting Schneider. Levy is a 45-year-old poker pro from Boynton Beach, FL.
7th Place – Michael Bozeman, from Deltona, FL exited in seventh place. He was low on chips and lost to a flush on his final hand. Bozeman is a 36-year-old poker pro, who mostly plays online. He has attended every WSOP since 2004, which means he was present when Schneider won his two gold bracelets. Bozeman is married and has two children, with another on the way. His share of the prize pool amounted to $2,065. An interesting side note is that Bozeman has no intention to play this event. He drove from his home three hours away thinking the tournament was a Pot-Limit Omaha event. Bozeman almost skipped the tournament when he discovered it was another game. His decision to stick around and play paid off nicely.
6th Place – Jeff Green, a 49-year-old CFO from Fort Meyers, FL became short stacked and busted out about 90 minutes into play. He was the 14th-place finisher in an Omaha High-Low Split event at the 2006 WSOP in Las Vegas. This time, he picked up a nice payout totaling $2,674. Green confessed he never heard of Tom Schneider until today, and admits he still would not recognize him in a crowd.
5th Place – “Captain” Tom Franklin has arguably the most impressive poker resume of any player in this year’s Palm Beach series. He’s pocketed more than $3 million in prize money, which is three-times what Tom Schneider has won during his poker career. Franklin has 32 WSOP cashes, including a gold bracelet victory in 1999. However, on this day Franklin wasn’t able to generate the momentum necessary to challenge the chip leader and ended up with a $3,518 payout for fifth place.
4th Place – Richard Cleveland, a 41-year-old retiree and former business owner from Boynton Beach, FL went bust about three hours into play. He missed a big raw and lost to trip queens. Cleveland has three previous WSOP cashes, as well as three children. Meanwhile, at the same time Cleveland was at the payout window collecting his $4,710 for fourth place, Tom Schneider was spotted out in the parking lot squeezing into his economy rental car.
3rd Place – Aaron Lambert was the player to beat when the final table began (despite Schneider’s grandiose protestations to the contrary). He had about half of the total chips in play when the first hand was dealt nine-handed. Four hours later, he was out on the rail in third place. Lambert suffered a poor run of cards later in the tournament and had to settle for $6,413 in prize money. He is a 26-year-old poker pro from Chapin, SC. Lambert was a previously wrestler while in college and was ranked seventh in the nation in Division II at one time.
2nd Place – The runner up was Dennis Napel, a 47-year-old sales manager for a major car dealership. He lives in Dubuque, IA. Napel was seeking his first WSOP Circuit victory, but came up just one place short. Instead, Napel collected a nice consolation prize totaling $8,881 in prize money.
Napel started out with a slight chip lead over Burt when heads-up play began. The betting limits were so high that both players traded the lead back and forth a few times before the final hand was dealt. That came when Napel’s stack had been whittled down and he was all-in holding . Burt had . Napel liked the flop when he caught two pair and bet aggressively. He was all-in on the turn. Burt caught two higher pair on the river. The final board showed . Burt was declared the champion.
1st Place – The latest WSOP Circuit champion is Timothy Burt, from Grenada, MS. He is a 30-year-old professional poker player who has made quite a name for himself as one of the game’s emerging stars. Burt is on a fantastic run during the last four months, having won major tournaments held at the WSOP Circuit – Biloxi (Imperial Palace), the Bayou Winter Poker Challenge at Harrah’s New Orleans, the Southern Poker Challenge in Mississippi, and now at WSOP Circuit – West Palm Beach.
Burt earned a well-deserved $14,375 in prize money. He was also presented with the gold ring, which is the ultimate token of achievement given for winning a WSOP Circuit event. Timothy Burt now officially owns two WSOP Circuit gold rings. Tom Schneider has none.
Burt joined the five previous winners here at Palm Beach, including Reed Zhao (Event 1), James Giraldo (Event 2), “Tampa Bay Ray” El Cuedo (Event 3), Chris Lyons (Event #4), and Brent Carter (Event #5). They are leaders in the point race for the top player at this inaugural Palm Beach series. The poker player who accumulates the most overall points receives a pre-paid entry into the $1 million 2010-2011 WSOP Circuit National Championship, to be held in May at Caesars Palace Las Vegas.
There are still four more gold ring events remaining on the WSOP Circuit schedule at the Palm Beach Kennel Club. Poker tournaments run through March 1st.
Writer’s Note: Tom Schneider was one of the many people who helped turn the Palm Beach Kennel Club into a WSOP Circuit stop on this year’s schedule. We thank him for his involvement in looking for ways to improve and expand this season’s activities.