Fernando Pons
Age: 37
Hometown: Palma, Spain
Occupation: Account Manager for a retail chain
WSOP Earnings: $0
WSOP Cashes: 0
WSOP Final Tables: 0
Best Previous Main Event Finish: N/A
*All stats are prior to the 2016 Main Event
Fernando Pons is the short stack entering the Main Event final table. He will be the underdog, not only because of his shallow chip stack, but also because he has the least amount of WSOP tournament experience of all of the remaining players. This is Pons’ first career WSOP cash. His live tournament poker resume prior to this year’s Main Event includes eight cashes in Spain for just under $10,000. Pons, a 37-year-old from Palma, Spain, qualified for the Main Event by winning a €30 satellite on 888poker. Pons is married and has one child. He works as an account manager for a retail chain in Spain.
Road to the Final Table:
Pons got off to a hot start and bagged a top 15 percent stack on the first two days of the tournament. His stack tapered off on Day 3 and he bagged in 684th out of the 800 players remaining. Day 4 went well for Pons and he was able to build his stack up close to the tournament average. On Day 5 Pons took a big leap up the chip counts and finished the day in 10th place with 80 players remaining and a stack of just under 8 million chips.
With the help of a little luck, Pons followed up Day 5 with another strong performance on Day 6. He was on the brink of elimination midway through the day when he ran pocket nines in Kakwan Lau’s pocket aces, but he was able to crack the aces to survive and double up. A few orbits later Pons won a huge flip to eliminate Jan Suchanek in 49th place. It wasn’t just luck that helped Pons build a big stack on Day 6. Later in the day he outplayed a world class player in Dan Colman to pick up a key pot. He then busted Colman in 31st place a few hands later. Pons finished Day 6 with 17,270,000 chips; good for 7th place with 27 players left. Day 7 did not go as Pons had planned, but he did just enough to secure a seat at the final table. He finished Day 7 with 6,150,000 chips and in last place.
Final Table Position:
Pons enters the final table as the short stack with 6,150,000 chips (12 bbs). On his right sits Vojtech Ruzicka with 27,300,000 chips (54 bbs). On his left is Las Vegas’ Qui Nguyen, who has 67,925,000 chips (135 bbs) and is in second place to start the final table.
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