Pablo Mariz won the 2017 WSOP Millionaire Maker event, which had 7,761 entrants. The $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Millionaire Maker tournament is Event #20 this year.
The prize pool for the event was $10,477,350 and 1,165 players received winnings in the event. Pablo Mariz, a Canadian poker professional, won $1,221,407 as his 1st-place jackpot prize. The Millionaire Maker event is the fourth time this year that the 27-year old player has cashed in an WSOP event.
Mariz Was Runner-Up at $1,000 Tag Team Event
Previously, Pablo Mariz was part of a runner-up team alongside fellow Canadian, David Guay, in the $1000 Tag Team event. He won $46,537 for his share of the winnings from the Tag Team event. The WSOP Millionaire Maker champion said this was the biggest feat of his career.
Mariz said of his victory in the Millionaire Maker, which gave his him first WSOP bracelet, “We come here every year, grinding small events hoping to hit something big and we finally did.”
Top Poker Pros in the Millionaire Maker
To win the event, Mr. Mariz had to defeat a number of top poker professionals in the latter stages of the event. Despite having such a large field of players, poker pros like Bryce Yockey, Senovio Ramirze, Brian Altman, and Kenny Hallaert finished in the Top 20 of the event. Matt Affleck finished 31st in the event.
Millionaire Maker Final Table
Dejuante Alexander was the second-place finisher in the event. Mr. Alexander won $754,499 and 1110 Player of the Year points by finishing in second place. The final table took 7 and 1/2 hours and 161 hands to complete, while the final heads-up showdown between Dejuante Alexander and Pablo Mariz took only 23 hands.
Alex Farahi finished 3rd and received $561,530, while Marc MacDonnel finished 4th and received $420,805. The aforementioned Bryce Yockey had a 5th place finish and collected $317,544 in winnings.
Plans to Stay through the WSOP Main Event
After his victory, Pablo Mariz celebrated with his tag-team partner, David Guay. The two hail from Montreal, Quebec, though Mr. Mariz said he plans to stay in Las Vegas through the end of the World Series of Poker tournament.
When asked about his plans for the remainder of the WSOP, the champion said, “I think we are going to be staying the rest of the summer, at least until the Main Event is over. I’m going for WSOP Player of the Year now.”
2017 WSOP Player of the Year Standings
After collecting 1320 POY Points for his victory in the 2017 Millionaire Maker Event, Pablo Mariz has a legitimate chance to win the event. At the moment, he sits at the top of the 2017 WSOP Leaderboard, ahead of Aditya Agarwal and John Racener by less than 50 points.
Top veteran players like Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu sit in the Top 10 at this point (at #8 and #9, respectively), while Dario Sammartino is in 6th place. Bertrand Grospellier holds down 11th place, while Mike Leah, Moritz Dietrich, and David Pham all sit in the 15 to 20 range.
Of course, only 20 of the WSOP’s 70+ events have finished, so the bulk of the POY points are still on the table. In baseball, they say you cannot win the pennant in April, but you can lose the pennant in April. Most of the time, the eventual Player of the Year positions themselves well in the early weeks of the World Series of Poker, then separates themselves with extended stretches of excellent play later in the tournamnet’s schedule.
Naturally, some of the biggest WSOP events are still to come, so the leadersboard is likely to change significantly in the next couple of weeks.
