The 26 year old amateur player from Horn Lake Ryan Stevenson took home first place and the WSOP Circuit gold ring in the Tunica main event this week. This was the largest ever main event in the history of WSOP Circuit events held at Tunica and Ryan went home with a cool $204,795. With career earnings at just over $13,000 before this event you could say that this one one of his better days at the felt and straight after the tournament ended, a very happy Stevenson said, "I'm dumfounded right now, this is a dream come true, especially for us grinders who put in a lot of work on and off the felt." Tunica has hosted the WSOP Circuit event for 8 years and this years main event started with 666 players generating an awesome prize pool just shy of $1 million at $999,000. The first day ended with just 99 players remaining and just after a short few hours the bubble burst and it was down to the money seats. Just after 1 a.m the unlucky Daniel Blakeman went out in tenth place and the final table was set. Stevenson went into battle sitting in third place and kept his play on the conservative side in the early stages. Rothfolk was chip leader and quickly established himself as the aggressive player at the table however even after eliminating five players he hadn't made a mark on Stevenson. Sanders was by far the most experienced player at the table and a regular WSOP Circuit player but he fell just short of the top three going out in fourth and after his elimination play slowed right down. It took over four hours before the next player had to leave and it was Stevenson who took out Rothfolk to commence heads up play against Norman Mckeldin. Just the one hand of play was all it took for a winner to be crowned with both players all in after the flop. A fantastic hand was played with McKeldin seemingly about to take first place until the river card gave Stevenson the 7 he needed to complete 2 pairs and complete the win. McKeldin in second place took home $126,723 and Stevenson took first place, the ring and a seat in the WSOP National Championship at Harrah's New Orleans in May. After a great event the circuit heads off to Vegas and rest assured we will be bring details of that one.
