Arkansas Poker Pro enters Missouri Main and comes out with huge Circuit win.
9 September 2019 (St. Charles, Mo.) -- Scott Hall became the first Ameristar Circuit Main Event Champion Monday afternoon. Winning granted the Poker Pro from Arkansas picked up his debut World Series of Poker gold ring, top prize of $130,667, as well as a seat in the 2020 Global Casino Championship.
“Feels about as good as anything can feel, really,” Hall said following his victory.
Hall has been playing poker professionally for about 12 to 13 years. The payout marks his 20th overall cash with the WSOP and jumps his earnings to over $300,000.
In the past, Hall has not been a frequent face one the Circuit tour. However, he has hit the radar early on here in the 2019/20 season. Hall showed up at the Choctaw Durant Circuit, placing 9th in Main Event, then of course decided on a journey to the St. Louis area.
“I like the Cardinals. I was going to go to the Cardinal game, but I actually didn’t end up going,” Hall stated, alluding to his reason for picking the stop. “I like St. Louis too, in general and I was really happy to see that the Circuit was coming back after it was gone for a few years. I wanted to make sure to support it being back here, so hopefully they do it again.”
Although missing out on an outing to Busch Stadium, Hall’s trip to the Midwest proved momentously lucrative in the end. The 31-year-old began his triumphant run in Flight B.
“I started out pretty good,” said Hall who rose to a six-figure stack early on in Day 1B, then endured a roller-coaster period in the middle. “I went from 130 to 20, then I was over 200 all probably within 30 minutes”
Losing flips, winning flips, and cooling other players in a short window left Hall with around 200,000 in chips. From there, he continued to chip up and eventually bagged 423,00, which was good for the overall chip lead.
Between Flights A and B, Event #10: $1,700 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event drew a combined field of 414 entries, creating a $627,210 prizepool. A total of 67 players made it through the starting leg stage, moving to Day 2 a mere four spots from the money.
Day 2 proved a long, busy stretch encompassing the money bubble, and three separate table redraws. Hall continued to coast, never getting too short. When the unofficial final table of 10 hit, Hall was second to last in chips. However, from there, he underwent a miraculous streak of hands.
“Coming into the final table, I probably had the best run of cards I’ve ever had in live poker, ever… Absolutely perfect timing,” mentioned Hall. “I hit probably three or four sets and I had aces four times.”
From second to last in chips with 700,000, Hall suddenly catapulted to 13,500,000. The final table included the likes of Gil George, gold ring winner Ravi Raghavan, two-time gold ring winner Ravi Raghavan, and the eventual Ameristar Casino Champion, Jerod Smith, but by the end of Day 2 only three remained.
Albert Morrow, Hall, and Andros Ioakimides were the only three to move to the Monday finale. It took just 3.5 hours on Day 3 for Hall to come in possession of all the chips in play, becoming the Ameristar Main Event Champ.
Other notable players earning a cash were Stanislav Angelov (61st), Keven Stammen (57th), Krzysztof Stybaniewicz (44th), Nate Bandy (33rd), Brett Apter (30th), William Byrnes (25th), Martin Ryan (23rd), Kyle Cartwright (22nd), Jeffrey Trudeau Jr. (19th), Brian Altman (13th), Mike Shin (12th), and Peter Brooks (11th).