Alex Aqel had a good start of 2017, winning his second six-figure price over the past three months. At the end of this year’s edition of the Potawatomi Circuit, it was Aqel who emerged victorious from the tournament’s Main Event, taking home a massive $208,184 portion of the guaranteed prize pool plus his first World Series of Poker (WSOP) Gold Ring. The winner was also granted with an automatic entry to the 2017 Global Casino Championship.
The $1,675 Buy-in Main Event of the 2017 Potawatomi Circuit gathered a player field of 667 entries. The event featured the largest first-place prize ever, and it also became the first time when the guaranteed prize pool of a Wisconsin poker tournament surpassed $1 million.
This is not the first time when Alexa Aqel takes part in the Potawatomi Circuit events. In November 2016, he won the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) $1,100 buy-in event at Potawatomi, getting a prize of $138,000, which at the time was the second largest first-place prize ever awarded in the history of Wisconsin. Now, the player holds two of the three biggest first-place prizes in the poker history of Wisconsin.
What is more, this first-place ranking also resulted in more than doubling the poker tournament winnings generated by Aqel in his career up to date, in spite of the fact he had won other six-digit prizes before.
After the game was over, Aqel commented on his achievement, saying his score was a huge success for him, especially considering the fact he wanted had a great desire of winning a WSOP Main Event. Winning the Potawatomi Main Event was also a great achievement for the player, because until now he has entered in approximately ten Circuit Main Events, but he had not managed to reach to Day 2.
With Alex Aqel winning the Potawatomi Circuit Main Event and getting a prize of $208,184, Chad Wiedenhoeft remained as a runner-up, scooping $128,816 from the guaranteed prize pool of the event. The third place was occupied by James Gregg, who won $94,482.
Denise Pratt remained fourth, followed by Garrett Riley. The sixth position in the ranking was taken by Nikolas Pupillo, while Nicolas Stone and Josh Reichard took the seventh and eighth place, respectively. Brad Jansen remained ninth, with a prize of $19,477.
- Author
Harry Evans
