Cole Ferraro Comes From Behind to Win in WSOP Event #61: $600 Deepstack Championship No-Limit Hold’em ($252,491)

On Oct.15, Cole Ferraro finished in second place out of 1,358 entrants to Dalibor Dula in Event #22: $1,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em for a career-best score of $123,142. Now, only two weeks later he has topped his own best WSOP finish in a field of 3,923 players to take down Event #61: $600 Deepstack Championship No-Limit Holdem for $252,491, besting Sami Rustom heads up.

“After my second place, this time I felt like I was gunning for first, maybe even a little harder than last time,” Ferraro shared with PokerNews after his victory.

Event #61 Final Table Results

The 22-year old recent college graduate started playing poker online a year and a half ago and is playing in his first WSOP. He is now only the third player this year to have a first place and a second place in bracelet events, the others are Phil Hellmuth and Ryan Leng, as well as the youngest to do so, and the only one of the three who’s finishes both came in no-limit hold’em tournaments.

“I moved out to Las Vegas in May, after I graduated college I got a part-time job and played about four to five times a week,” he said when asked about his status as a player. “This trip to the World Series was a trial of sorts, but given everything that has happened over these two weeks I think it will supersede my other job.”

Ferraro’s day was a rollercoaster of chip changes, coming in as an average stack, to being down to six big blinds, to spinning it up to the chip lead at the beginning of the final table. Ferraro maintained a bigger stack the entire final table, until losing the lead heads up, but ultimately came back out on top. A strong, supportive rail followed Ferraro throughout the duration of the final table and crushed him in hugs when he eventually won.

“It’s just so surreal, this being my first World Series of Poker, I just never expected anything like a first place when I came out here.”

Ferraro said he will be sticking around to play the WSOP Main Event.

Final Day Action

The final day started with eliminations flying quickly. Within the first two levels of play, the players had already lost nearly a third of the field, bringing it down to three tables. Bracelet winners Barry Shulman (26th-$8,633) and Mark Seif (25th-$8,633) were eliminated back to back, ensuring that there would be a new bracelet winner.

Start of the day chip leader Perry Ernest (23rd-$8,633) saw his chip lead disappear when Rustom rivered a full house to beat his own full house. He departed shortly after that, and eliminations continued at a relatively quick pace.

Within another three hours, players went down to the final table of ten when Marc Rangel (11th-$20,139) failed to improve with queen-jack versus the ace-queen held by Ronald Slucker.

Final Table Action

The final table started with Ferraro holding a slight lead over Rustom and Richard Dixon, but all being relatively close to each other and jockeying for position. Richard gained the lead when Bart Lybaert five-bet shoved against Ferraro, which put Lybaert neck and neck in third and fourth in chips.

Jason R. Smith seemed to be poised for an early double when he got his pocket kings in against queens held Edgardo Rosario on a ten-high board, but two running hearts would have his kings cracked and he was eliminated in 10th place for $20,139.

The man who brought the players to the final table was Slucker and he would be the next to depart in ninth place for $25,359 when he went all-in with a set of fives, got called by Dixon with sevens, who ran out a straight to the eight to take all of his chips.

Rubin Chappell could not gain any momentum early on and eventually put in the remainder of his chips with pocket eights, only to get called by Lybaert who had pocket queens. The board would prove to be no help to Chappell and he would be eliminated in eighth place for $32,169.

Xiangdong Huang came to the final table with the shortest stack and was able to outlast three people despite that. However, his laddering endeavors came to an end when he got his remaining twelve big blinds in with ace-eight off-suit against Richard Dixon’s sixes and he was eliminated in seventh place for $41,108.

Dixon would score another elimination as he went all-in from the cutoff with ace-six suited into Rosario’s big blind, who called with ace-queen. Dixon would flop a pair of sixes which improved to three of a kind on the river, Rosario would flop a queen-high flush draw and find no improvement on the river, leaving him to exit the tournament in sixth place for $52,914.

Despite some big gains early in the final table, Dixon found himself on the losing end of big pots against Ferraro and Lybaert, as well as doubling up Sean Dunleavy, and being shown a bluff by Rustom that had him declaring verbally that he was on tilt for the rest of the final table. Dixon finished in fifth place when he cold-called a four-bet from Ferraro and called an all-in on a queen-high board with ace-queen. It was no good against Ferraro’s pocket kings and the early final table chip leader found himself eliminated in fifth place for $68,604.

Lybaert was the next to be eliminated when he called off against Ferraro, only to run into pocket aces on a king-high board. Lybaert shook hands with his opponents and left the tournament in fourth place, collecting $89,587 for his efforts.

Ferraro took the lead into the three-handed portion of the final table that was over within 20-minutes. Dunleavy went all-in on a river after check-raising the turn with three jacks, only to run into a flush Rustom made on the river. Dunleavy shook hands with his opponents and he ended his second WSOP tournament he had ever played in third place for $117,882.

Ferraro Comes from Behind to Defeat Rustom

Rustom started heads up with a 2:1 chip lead and start to win some pots early, but one key pot where Ferraro caught Rustom bluffing with jack-high, pushed the momentum into his corner. After that point, Ferraro won another key pot where Rustom paid him off when he rivered a straight against the pocket kings of Rustom and the chip counts found themselves flipped from where they were at the beginning of the match.

The final hand had Rustom going all-in for one-third of the chips in play after Ferraro had raised. After going into the tank for over a minute, Ferraro called with his pocket tens which were good against the pocket fours of Rustom. The tens held up and a shocked Ferraro shook hands with Rustom who collected $156,056 for his second-place finish.

Ferraro started his world series as the second to last man standing and has now become the last man standing. At 22 he is the youngest bracelet winner of the 52nd World Series of Poker and now the only player with a second and a first in two no-limit hold’em bracelet events.

This concludes the PokerNews coverage of this event but check out the WSOP Live Reporting Hub to follow all the exciting action here at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino.