Shannon Shorr Wins First 2021 Poker Masters Event

The 2021 Poker Masters kicked off on September 8 at the PokerGO Studio outside Aria Las Vegas, and Shannon Shorr is the festival’s first champion. Shorr bested a field of 82 entrants in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, a result worth $205,000.

Day 1 saw 82 players buy into the Vegas tournament for $10,000, which gave them a 125,000 starting stack. Only the top 12 finishers won a slice of the $820,000 prize pool and precious Poker Masters points.

The money bubble popped late on Day 1 with Chad Eveslage crashing out in 13th place. Eveslage was all-in with As-5d and against Brock Wilson’s dominating Ah-Ts. The 6s-7d-9c flop gave Eveslage outs to a straight, with the 4d turn giving even more options. However, the Kh river was not one of them, and Eveslage busted.

A three-way all-in after the bubble burst saw Darren Elias and Mitchell Halverson exit. Elias was all-in with Kh-Td, Halverson the Ks-6c, and Jonathan Jaffee with 9c-8c. The board ran 9h-2c-3s-As-7d to reduce the player count by two.

Play ended after the eliminations of Jim Collopy, Nitis Udornpim, and Sean Perry because that left only seven players in the hunt for the title; the official final table.

Shorr Third in Chips at the Final Table

Shorr entered the final table third in chips, trailing only Wilson and David Peters by a few big blinds.

Ben Yu was the final table’s first casualty. Yu sat down as the shortest stack and failed to improve his position. Shorr dealt the final blow.

John Riordan busted in sixth place at the hands of Shorr. His As-8h ran into Ah-Qd and lost despite flopping an eight on the 8d-7h-5s-Qh-Qc board.

Fifth place and $65,500 went to Jaffee who lost a coinflip with pocket deuces against Wilson’s Ac-9h. Wilson could not put Jaffee’s chips to good use and was the next star out of the door. Two keys hands turned Wilson from hero to zero.

First, his Ad-3d lost to Peters’ pocket kings, which reduced Wilson’s stack by half. Wilson got the rest of his chips in with Kh-6h on a king-high flop, only for Peters to call with Ks-Qs.

Dylan DeStefano was the last player not to bank six-figures, although he came close. DeStefano collected $98,400 when his Qh-9h failed to get there against the jacks of Peters.

A Crazy Conclusion To The Tournament

Peters started the one-on-one battle against Shorr with a 5,375,000 to 4,875,000 chip lead. The lead changed hands a few times before Peters forged a lead for himself. Shorr leveled things, which is when the players realized registration for Event #2 was about to close. They agreed to a deal before moving all-in every hand until the cards determined the champion.

Lady Luck shone down on Shorr and he emerged as the opening event’s champion.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Shannon Shorr	$205,000
2	David Peters	$147,600
3	Dylan DeStefano	$98,400
4	Brock Wilson	$82,000
5	Jonathan Jaffee	$65,600
6	John Riordan	$49,200
7	Ben Yu	$41,000

This is the third live victory of 2021 for Shorr. The man from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, won the $5,000 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown for $296,535 in April. Shorr won the $2,650 side event at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in August for $186,261. Now he has this impressive first-place finish.

Shorr revealed he has been honing his skills in the online poker world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Ever since the pandemic came, I’ve been playing a bunch online, so that was very big for improving my game and getting much more fundamentally sound – having poker on my mind more. For years, I just kind of showed up and played live poker. I played online some, but to make it like a lifestyle and have it constantly on my mind and constantly be working is huge for giving me confidence when I play these bigger buy-ins live and stuff.”

Brad Johnson

You name the game, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Brad has either played it or placed a wager on it! Brad calls himself a natural gambler, and someone who gains as much enjoyment from writing about the crazy game of poker as he does playing it.

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