Dustin Grimm Takes First WSOP Circuit Gold at Harrah's St. Louis
Dustin Grimm of Cedar Hill, MO outlasted an impressive 675-player field, earning $40,837 and a coveted WSOP Circuit Event Ring, a high mark of achievement in tournament poker.The $300 +(40) buy-in tournament was the largest ever held in the state of Missouri and generated a total prize pool of $196,134.
WSOP Director and Vice President of International Poker Operations, Jack Effel, was on hand to address the mass of day 1 starters. Before announcing the tournament rules, he thanked the players for the large turnout and for representing a booming poker community in the Midwest.
Video of Harrah's St. Louis Circuit Event opening announcements: http://www.twitvid.com/TXBDC
Effel also thanked the staff and management of Harrah's St. Louis, who for over a year, had been diligent in bringing a major tournament to the Gateway City.
Local poker celebrity Paul Harris, co-host of "The Final Table" radio show, also said a few words before making the customary announcement to shuffle up and deal.
Play began shortly after noon and ended promptly at 2:00 am with just 23 players remaining. About an hour and a half after the Saturday 2:00 pm restart, the final ten players racked up their chips and made their way to the final table. Blinds and antes were at 15,000/30,000/4,000.
Grimm had a marginal chip lead over Mark Voll as heads up play began at around 6:15 pm. Grimm strengthened his lead with a number of post-raises against his opponent, and moved to about an 8-1 chip lead after rivering trip sixes and getting a call from Voll for much of his stack.
Voll doubled back to over a million after flopping a flush on Grimm's pocket aces, but would not gain any more ground than that.
In the final hand of the evening, Voll reraised Grimm with A7 for about 900,000 all-in. Grimm called with pocket 10's and the two saw a flop of 8c9h5c. A Qc on the turn and 9s on the river gave Grimm the win, worth $40,837 and a Circuit Event gold ring. Voll collected $23,203 for second.
Grimm owns and operates Top Pair Poker, a startup that sets up free poker tournaments at area bars. This was his largest tournament win.
The 34-year old hugged his parents who were watching from the rail along with a teary-eyed wife before wiping a bit of moisture from his own.
He says that he was down to only 1,300 chips from a starting stack of 8,000 after taking a bad beat early in the tournament, but after chipping back up felt that the tournament was his to win.
"About eight hours into the tournament, it was weird, I felt that I was meant to be here this time, I've never felt that way about any tournament that I've played in."
When asked about his future plans, Grimm says that he's looking at playing the main event, and will take his wife on a well-deserved vacation.
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by Alan Fowler - WSOP Assistant Media Director
posted by Kurt at 10:08 PM
2 Comments:
Hi, I am Dustin Grimm, i just wanted to thank you for the great article, however just to let you know i had the pocket tens and Voll had the A 7, lol, but again Thank You
11:11 PM
lol ... Thanks for your comment Dustin and I've corrected the error.
BOL in future tourneys!
Kurt
Publisher
PokerAllstar
12:55 AM
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