Four days in paradise turned into a dream come true as Vincent Fiorenza outlasted a star-studded field of 274 players to win the 2015 PPC Aruba World Championship Main Event at the Aruba Hilton.
Two starting days kicked off Wednesday with Day 1 in the Aruba Hilton Ballroom and David Kidd put together an outstanding run to win the flight bagging 257,600 chips. Joelle Guarino wound up second with 212,000 and Pamela Wilson finished third with 190,000.
Numerous top professionals also punched their ticket to Day 2 as well. Joe Serock, Mark Kroon, Harrison Gimbel, Shawn Rice, Hayden Fortini and Jason Lee all advanced putting serious star power into Friday’s play.
Day 1B saw Mike Postle turn up the heat and take the overall chip lead with 324,400 chips followed by Sam Rashid at 243,000 and Vincent Fiorenza at 216,200. Overall, 76 players out of the 274 entries made it through to Day 2 with 27 players making the money.
Day 2 saw Joey Couden, Mark Kroon and Shawn Rice make their presence felt as they made big runs to be among the chip leaders midway through the day. Mike Postle and David Kidd continued their steady runs to stay at the top as well. The day wore on and finally the cash bubble burst as a short-stacked Steve Karp saw his aces cracked to put the rest of the field in the money.
The action rolled on as players began dropping quickly. Hayden Fortini went down in 23rd place and a stunning hand sent Day 1 chip leader Mike Postle to the rail in 21st place. Mark Kroon was caught in a huge bluff by Vincent Fiorenza which eventually led to his downfall in 18th place. The field continued to trim quickly until the field got down to eleven players with short stacks Ken Davis and Pablo Abraca fighting to stay alive. Abraca finally fell in 11th place closing out Day 2 and setting up the Main Event’s final table with Shawn Rice putting together a terrific finish to end the day as the chip leader closely followed by Joey Couden.
Once the final table began, it did not take long to lose some players. Ken Davis quickly went out in 10th place and Todd Funderburg finished off Marshall Tarzy in 9th place. David Kidd’s stack had also trickled away and he was taken out by Joey Couden in 8th place. In the meantime, Vincent Fiorenza was climbing up the ladder and had reach 1.3 million chips to put himself in contention for the title.
Fiorenza continued to help his cause by eliminating Steve Trizis in 7th place but all eyes were on Shawn Rice who continued to build his chip lead taking a huge hand from Todd Funderberg and knocking him out in 6th place. Then after a couple of roller coaster levels, Joey Couden knocked Harrison Gimbel out of the tournament in 5th place and in the process gave the four remaining players 2016 $5,000 PPC Aruba Packages.
Shawn Rice continued to hold the chip lead as the players hit their dinner break. But Danny Lobato managed to hit a huge river card taking chips off Rice and saving his tournament life. But Rice struck back taking out Joey Couden in 4th place setting up a wild three-way showdown.
The chip lead would be repeatedly passed between the three remaining players and after another two hours of play, Vincent Fiorenza would find himself in the lead but Lobato doubled up through Shawn Rice to become the front runner. Then a decisive hand took place with Rice holding pocket nines against Fiorenza’s A-Q. Rice was good until the river when an ace hit the board and the result left Rice with only 40,000 chips and he was eliminated on the next hand in 3rd place.
The heads-up match saw Danny Lobato holding a 700,000 chip lead on Vincent Fiorenza but it did not last long. Fiorenza took a large pot off of Lobato early on and then Fiorenza found himself putting Lobato all-in for his tournament life holding pocket eights against Lobato’s A-8. Fiorenza hit a set on the flop and Lobato got no help ending the tournament leaving Fiorenza as the victor.
Fiorenza discussed his strategy leading up to the final table and the key hand with Mark Kroon. ”I like to switch up my game a little bit with four or five tables left. I played a hand a little bit weird with Mark (Kroon). I flopped trips and slow played it. It put me to the test but I chipped up at that point and it was a key to me getting to the final table.”
He also broke down his plan for Day 3. ”I did study up the players and didn’t get too much sleep. This was my hardest final table I’ve ever been at and it was pretty tough. I was playing against Harrison (Gimbel) and I did not like it. I stayed out of his and maybe two other people’s way at the final table. But throughout the whole tournament I was only all-in when we were three-handed and was just cruising along trying to maintain my stack and stay in the game.”
Fiorenza then reflected back on the final table. “Once Harrison got knocked out, I breathed a sigh of relief. Play definitely loosened up and three-handed I really opened up. I decided to bluff Danny (Lobato) one time and showed him to get him a little titled and get him into bigger pots. I got really lucky on that first all-in I had but everyone got lucky when we were four-handed. Then Danny had me outchipped heads-up but I came back. I was pretty much thinking I had the tournament won when he was thinking about making the last call when I had the eights.”
The win was very meaningful to the newly crowned champion. ”I’ve been pretty fortunate to jump on the tournament scene and do pretty well so far so it means a lot. I’ve had lots of supporters. Aruba’s great and my supporters were great here and it really means a lot to be the PPC Champion.”
Lastly, Fiorenza graciously discussed the tournament and its staff. ”I think this a great tournament. It’s my first year in Aruba and it’s a great spot, great venue, great people, great reporters. From the staff to the dealers all the way to the directors everyone did an awesome job. I had a lot of fun here and I’ll definitely be back next year.”
Congratulations to the 2015 PPC Aruba World Championship Main Event Champion – Vincent Fiorenza!
Results:
1st: Vincent Fiorenza – $106,027 + $5,000 2016 PPC Aruba Package
2nd: Danny Lobato – $62,480 + $5,000 2016 PPC Aruba Package
3rd: Shawn Rice – $35,974 + $5,000 2016 PPC Aruba Package
4th: Joey Couden – $29,158 + $5,000 2016 PPC Aruba Package
5th: Harrison Gimbel – $22,720
6th: Todd Funderburg – $18,934
7th: Steve Trizis – $15,147
8th: David Kidd – $11,360
9th: Marshall Tarzy – $7,573
10th: Ken Davis – $4,923
11th: Pablo Abraca – $4,923
12th: Eric Flesch – $4,923
13th: B.J. McBrayer – $4,165
14th: David Kaye – $4,165
15th Jesse Chinni – $4,165
16th: Saum Sharifi – $3,787
17th: Robert Gray – $3,787
18th: Mark Kroon – $3,787
19th: Pamela Wilson – $3,408
20th: Bill Blount – $3,408
21st: Mike Postle – $3,408
22nd: Joelle Gaurino – $3,408
23rd: Hayden Fortini – $3,408
24th: Mike Beasley – $3,408
25th: Tim Williams – $3,408
26th: Elle Mirzaei – $3,408
27th: Bob Potter – $3,408
