Event #3: $580 No-Limit Hold'em Re-entry

Event #3
No-Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Buy-In: $500 (+$80)
Total Entries: 615
Prize Pool: $307,500
September 18-20,2015

Florida pro Ryan Van Sanford goes from first to worst at the final table, finishes third.

West Palm Beach, Fla. (September 21, 2015) — Jonathan Abla carded an unlikely victory at the Palm Beach Kennel Club World Series of Poker Circuit early Monday morning. The 29-year-old South Carolina pro went from two big blinds six handed to becoming a two-time gold ring winner in Event #3, a $580 no-limit hold’em re-entry tournament. Complementing the Circuit’s ultimate prize was a cash worth $64,575 as well as 50 points toward the Casino Championship.

The event’s restart kicked off Sunday with 80 players remaining and just the top 63 finishing in the money. Abla lead the way to start, but was quickly relieved of the top spot by WPT champion and local pro Ryan Van Sanford.

“I’ve never been chip leader coming into a Day 2,” Abla said after the win. “I was really pumped, but it’s almost a little bit of added pressure. It feels like you can only go down after you skyrocket up. You have to remember it’s a marathon.”

Van Sanford played with a fury down the stretch turning his 55,000-chip Day 2 starting stack into 1,650,000 by the time the 10-handed final table started. From there, nothing changed. With four players left, Van Sanford held 5,500,000 of the 7,380,000 chips in play. That stack was good for 137 big blinds at the time and dwarfed the 10-big-blind, 400,000-chip stack of Abla.

“He’s an incredible player. I think he’s very advanced and really good,” Abla said of Van Sanford. “He said out loud, ‘I’m tired. I’m getting tired.’ I just went in defense most — grind him out, grind him out. My main goal wasn’t to ladder, but I kind of wanted to let [Van Sanford] make a mistake. I felt like he was getting tired even though he had all the chips.”

As play stretched into the early morning hours of Monday, Van Sanford played a big hand against eventual runner up Raymond Ruszkowski. In a three-bet pot, Van Sanford check-called a bet of 700,000 on the river. Ruszkowski flipped over pocket aces for an overpair and Van Sanford’s hand instantly hit the muck. The loss left Van Sanford with under 2,000,000 and he never recovered. He finished third earning $29,206.

From there, Abla masterfully maneuvered a short stack yet again to best Ruszkowski and take the tournament’s top spot in the process.

“It’s surreal again,” Abla said of his second gold ring win. “You win the first time and it’s like, ‘Wow. That will probably never happen again.’ This is a bigger field. It’s a bigger buy-in than the one I won. It just feels twice as good. It really does. A lot of people say, ‘One bracelet or one ring. Anybody can do that. Anybody can run really good.’ I feel like it establishes me a little more to have two rings.”

Abla’s previous gold ring victory came in a $365 no-limit hold’em tournament at Harrah’s Cherokee in Cherokee, N.C. He outlasted a field of 404 players and took home $26,660 for his efforts. That win kickstarted a 2014/2015 Circuit season that would see Abla qualify for the season-ending WSOP National Championship with an at-large bid. He parlayed that opportunity into a final table appearance and a ninth-place finish worth $30,854.

Abla resides in Bluffton, S.C. His Event #3 victory at the Kennel Club marks his 21st WSOP-related cash and moves him over $230,000 in career WSOP-related earnings.

Event #3 was the third of 12 gold ring events on the WSOP Circuit schedule at the Palm Beach Kennel Club. The $580 re-entry event attracted 615 entries. The total prize pool came to $307,500 and the top 63 finishers were paid.

The tournament featured four starting flights beginning Friday, September 18 and Saturday, September 19 at noon and 6 p.m. Friday’s Flight A drew 208 entries and advanced 27 while Flight B drew 97 and advanced 12. Saturday’s Flight C drew 200 and advanced 27 while Flight D drew 110 and advanced 14. Each starting flight logged 15 levels (roughly nine hours) of play.

The remaining 80 players merged for Day 2 Sunday, September 20 at noon. The bubble burst toward the end of Level 17 (about 1:15 p.m.). From there, play narrowed to the nine-handed final table toward the end of Level 24 (about 8 p.m.) and wrapped toward the end of Level 31 (about 2:30 a.m.).

Final table results:

1st: Jonathan Abla - $64,575 + Circuit gold ring
2nd: Raymond Ruszkowski - $39,941
3rd: Ryan Van Sanford - $29,206
4th: Janet Fitzgerald - $21,673
5th: Damian Sanchez - $16,307
6th: Jordan Shamah - $12,438
7th: Christian Rodriquez - $9,619
8th: Jeff Dobrin - $7,540
9th: Ernest Greene - $5,990

Complete results are available under the "Results" tab above.