After an incredibly fast and action-packed day, Event #14: $2,000 The Closer Turbo Bounty has crowned a winner here at the 2023 World Series of Poker Paradise from the Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas. After a full afternoon of all-ins, flips and a shallow tournament chip average, Bernardo Neves stood alone to claim the $166,000 first-place prize and the bracelet after defeating Archibald Seaton in heads up play who will take home $101,000 for his runner-up finish.
The event was one of the last ones on the docket for the inaugural WSOP Paradise, and the players still in The Bahamas showed up in force, looking to close out the series with a six-figure score and a bracelet. With many players having already left to head home or go to Vegas, the event didn’t quite hit its guarantee, but the prize pool was a massive $1,000,000 nonetheless, providing some additional free value for the players who did decide to play.
Winner’s Reaction
As the final table was playing down to a winner, Neves had his wife on the rail from start to finish and her excitement could be felt from across the room. She stayed on video chat from start to finish with family members back home in Portugal who all stayed up through the night to witness the accomplishment and when asked how it felt to be going home with a bracelet in what was his very first WSOP of any kind, he said that he simply didn’t have words.
Speaking through a huge smile, he spoke of the hard work he’s put into the game over the last ten years of being a predominantly online player and after having what was his best online year ever, he looks forward to heading to Vegas this coming summer to chase another bracelet.
In his parting words, the bracelet and the victory took a back seat to the love and support of his family. In a year where he had the best poker results of his life, it’s clear that the accomplishment still comes in second place to the love he feels and the fact that he was lucky enough to marry the love of his life, who he described as a “beautiful and wonderful woman” who supports his efforts and his dreams relentlessly.
Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bernardo Neves | Portugal | $166,000 |
| 2 | Archibald Seaton | United Kingdom | $101,000 |
| 3 | Aria Shahi | Canada | $69,500 |
| 4 | Lucas Aleandri | Argentina | $48,800 |
| 5 | Natasha Mercier | Lebanon | $35,000 |
| 6 | Andrei Plotnikov | Russia | $25,600 |
| 7 | Steve Desjarlais | Canada | $19,100 |
| 8 | Aleksandr Zubov | Russia | $14,500 |
| 9 | Hyungyu Park | Korea | $11,300 |
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Action of the Day
The pace of play was incredibly fast in the turbo bounty structure and the first hour of play proved that to be true as the field whittled itself down from the original 60 returning players to half of that number. Many players were in all-in or fold mode and that didn’t change on the final table as Hyungyu Park was the first to hit the rail in ninth when he got it all-in only to be flopped close to dead. Aleksandr Zubov was next to bust when he ran into aces and couldn’t find a way to make a comeback. Steve Desjarlais soon followed after losing a flip to an unfortunate river card that sent him to the exit in seventh.
Andrei Plotnikov got it in shortly thereafter in a dominating position only to watch his opponent flop a straight to push him out the door in sixth. Natasha Mercier found her shove spot in a three-way pot on a flop that gave her an open-ended straight draw but after getting called, she missed all her outs and headed to the rail with a fifth-place finish. Lucas Aleandri was next to leave after getting it in good but falling to an unfortunate river card that sent him packing in fourth. Aria Shahi made his exit in third place after being essentially all-in in the big blind and failing to improve after five cards, making way for heads up play.
When heads up play began, Neves held slightly more than a 4:1 chip lead over Seaton but putting an end to the tournament wasn’t automatic as Seaton doubled immediately on the very first hand of heads up by flopping a flush to close the chip gap a good bit. Unfortunately for Seaton, any hopes of extending the battle for the bracelet were short-lived as just a few hands later, Neves forced a fold on the river to move back into a big chip lead and then ended it all the very next deal to claim one of the last bracelets of the series.
That concludes coverage of this event, but with one event still left to crown a champion, keep it locked to PokerNews for the exciting conclusion of the 2023 WSOP Paradise from the Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas!
