The March 2024 Bally’s Black Hawk Colorado Poker Championship $1,200 Main Event drew 394 entries over three starting flights and generated a $405,820 prize pool, more than double its $200,000 guarantee. Fifty-two players returned for Sunday’s Day 2 with their sights set on the $89,280 first-place prize, and the top 45 made it into the money.
Just over 12 hours later, four players remained and agreed to a deal based on the ICM value of their chip stacks. Phil Gioia had the most chips in play and claimed first place, the coveted CPC Main Event trophy and a career-best $59,885.
Gioia entered the day with an above-average stack of 294,000, nearly 10 starting stacks and almost 60 big blinds to put to use. He also brought a Hawaiian tiki statue his kids brought back for him a month ago when visiting the Aloha State.
“The Hawaiian tiki brought the magic,” said Gioia after the tournament. It was the first time he had brought the tiki out with him.
Discussions of a four-way deal surfaced after start-of-day chip leader Aaron Thomas lost his grasp on what was quickly becoming a commanding chip lead. He four-bet shoved with pocket nines and put Day 1A chip leader Bob Reiter’s ace-king at risk, where he put Reiter in serious jeopardy on a queen-nine-seven flop. Reiter hit running ten-jack to improve to Broadway, which evened out the stacks and caused the players to see what they could lock up and take home.
After counting their stacks, Gioia led with just over 4 million. Reiter followed with 3.28 million and Thomas was third with 2.97 million. Thomas Fuller, who belongs on Black Hawk’s Mount Rushmore, had 1.57 million. Everyone agreed to the ICM value of their stacks, shook hands, and collected their winnings.
See our full event reporting from Hill Kerby and the full results here.
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