The $1,700 Main Event here at the Horseshoe Hammond WSOP Circuit stop has come to a close with Soheb Porbandarwala absolutely steamrolling the final table to clinch his 12th career circuit ring in style!
When the final day began, Porbandarwala held almost double the stack of his nearest competitor. The late stages of the Day 2 session were insane already with the field losing four more players than anyone on staff thought possible thanks to non-stop action and the final day was no different. Within an hour, Porbandarwala held roughly 60% of the chips in play after getting down to six-handed he did not stop there.
He did hit a couple of speed bumps, namely in the form of a double that Porbandarwala sent to both Jonathan Seely and Adam Greenberg but with the chip lead he had built, they were almost unnoticeable to his stack.
On top of putting on an absolute clinic in final table play with a high opening frequency and putting his opponents in ICM nightmare spots, he also ran incredibly well. At one point, Porbandarwala sent Eric Adelstein to the rail after opening and deciding to call the three-bet jam of Adelstein.
Adelstein held the 8♠8♣ and was flipping versus the A♦10♦ of Porbandarwala. The flop gave Porbandarwala a royal flush draw with the turn bringing in the nut flush, but that just wasn't enough of an exclamation on the tournament for the poker gods as the J♦ nailed the river, completing the royal flush and making the way the day was going to go all the more clear to the remaining other players.
On the final hand, not long into heads up play, Brad Coultas jammed for roughly 20 blinds and saw a snap call from Porbandarwala. It was good news for Coultas at first as he held the dominating A♠8♣ to Porbandarwala's A♦2♦, but when the flop came 10♦J♦2♠, there was definitely a "was there ever a doubt" feeling in the air as Porbandarwala left Coultas drawing incredibly thin. The board completed without helping Coultas who was left with a 2nd place finish while Porbandarwala secured his largest ever live tournament score, completing a wire-to-wire final table run in the most stylish way possible, both with fantastic play, insane run good and his bright blue, dice-covered lucky shirt.
It was quite the homecoming here at Horseshoe Hammond for Porbandarwala, who spoke fondly of having loved coming to play this stop as a younger man and after having not been here in quite some time, to roll in and take down the penultimate event in such dominating fashion is an incredibly special moment, so much so that he was rendered almost speechless for a moment.
On one of his other Main Event circuit rings, Porbandarwala had his two daughters names engraved on it and after having a third daughter since then, it sounds likely that it will not be the family man's name etched on the ring, but his daughter's name so that he has a ring with all their names featured.
With this win, Porbandarwala cements his status as one of the most successful and decorated players in the storied history of the WSOP Circuit with a victory that was built on the back of one of the most dominant, lop-sided and fast-paced final table performances we've ever seen materialize.
For his win and in addition to his 12th WSOP Circuit ring (3rd in Main Events), Porbandarwala also takes home $257,725 in cash, the title of Main Event Champion and a seat to the 2024 WSOP Tournament of Champions and to say that he is one to watch when that event kicks off would be a massive understatement.
Final Table Payouts:
1st: Soheb Porbandarwala - $257,725
2nd: Brad Coultas - $159,277
3rd: Jonathan Seely - $119,402
4th: Adam Greenberg - $90,360
5th: Richard Bai - $69,039
6th: Hussain Sajwani - $53,259
7th: Eric Adelstein - $41,489
8th: Brian Altman - $32,639
9th: Brian Batt - $25,993
10th: Cero Zuccarello - $20,813
