54-year old Johnnie Craig wins the $1,000 Seniors No Limit Hold’em Championship

An astonishing 4,499 seniors of the pokerworld each bought in for $1,000 to play in the only event that doesn’t allow youngsters: the $1,000 Seniors No Limit Hold’em Championship. Six players returned on the final day, all competing for the $538,204. At the end, it was Johnnie Craig who took home the bracelet and the dough.

At the start of the final day, these were the stacks:

Wesley Chong was the overwhelming chipleader, and as you can see, Johnnie Craig had some work to do considering his position. And he did.

Paul Runge was the first player to leave, taking home $103,366. The chipleader at the start of the final day, Wesley Chong, was surprisingly enough the next player to leave the table. He lost a lot of pots earlier on the final day, and eventually he shoved into Roger Sippl’s on a jack-high board. Chong took home $136,829, not bad for a buy-in of just $1,000, but I bet he hoped for a lot more.

Shortly after Joseph Somerville ran his into Jamshid Lotfi’s and didn’t stand a chance when the latter flopped top two pair.

When the players were three-handed, things didn’t go according to plans for High Roller-regular Roger Sippl. On a flop he was all-in with against Lotfi’s and was drawing dead on the turn.

This meant that the 4^th and 6^th in chips at the beginning of the day could battle it out for the top prize. After 48 hands of heads-up play, Lotfi found himself all-in with against of Craig, and after a board of Lotfi must be satisfied with his second place finish.

These were the results of the final table of nine: