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Stephen Chidwick bagged event 7 of the Poker Masters series last night, the English highstakes pro picking up $183,600 and vaulting himself to 5th spot in the overall leaderboard race for the Purple Jacket.
The last of the $10k buy-in events saw 68 entries although only the top 10 could look forward to a payday, with Erik Seidel, Dan Shak, Jonathan Little, and Daniel Negreanu among those falling well short of the paid spots.
Alex Foxen was the unfortunate bubble boy in 11th place and by the time day one came to a close, only five players remained, Dan Smith and Chidwick by far the two best-known faces at the final table.
Smith was first to depart on day two, the “cowboy” rather ironically running his pocket 8’s into Chidwick’s kings, and he was followed to the rail by Brekstyn Schutten courtesy of AP Louis Garcia.
Garcia himself would fall in third spot when he couldn't pull off a second ace-under-ace comeback, but his $88,400 cash was his second of the series, which follows a career-best runner-up cash of $674,285 at last month’s SHRPO Main Event.
Heads-up began with Chidwick holding a 2:1 chip lead over Garcia’s conqueror, Dylan DeStefano, and the Englishman finished the day off the way he had started it, DeStefano every street on the way to the bad news...
Chidwick: K♦ K♣
Dylan DeStefano: Q♥ 10â™
Flop: Q♠9♥ 5♦
Turn: 3♣
River: 8â™
Final results
| 1 | Stephen Chidwick | $183,600 |
| 2 | Dylan DeStefano | $136,000 |
| 3 | AP Louis Garcia | $88,400 |
| 4 | Brekstyn Schutten | $68,000 |
| 5 | Dan Smith | $54,400 |
| 6 | Sean Perry | $40,800 |
“It feels great,” Chidwick told PokerGO reporters afterwards, explaining: “I always feel like when I’m coming into a series like this that I’m one of the favorites to string together some big results and win the jacket.
He added: “To get off the mark the past couple of days and put myself in contention, I guess it’s a bit of a relief heading into the higher stakes portion of the series to be able to be within striking distance.”
The win launched Chidwick into 5th spot on the Purple Jacket race leaderboard, Daniel Negreanu still holding top spot after his victory earlier this week, though now only 1 point ahead of Sean Perry.
