Kory Kilpatrick wins his first WSOP bracelet in NLHE Shootout

Kory Kilpatrick has taken down the $3000 NLHE Shootout, Event #20 at the World Series of Poker. In doing so, he has added $254,891 to his live poker earnings and won his first WSOP gold bracelet. This was in fact Kilpatrick’s first live final table, but although his name may not be familiar to live players, he used to be a fairly big name online before Black Friday, particularly on Full Tilt, where he had multiple six-figure cashes in FTOPS.

This win no doubt comes at a very good time for Kilpatrick, who despite his earlier successes has not been running good since Black Friday, with only one large cash before last night’s win, and heavy losses incurred on those occasions that he has managed to get online to play 50/100 PLO or high buy-in events on PokerStars.

It was not an easy field for Kilpatrick to get through, including the likes of Chris Bell and Phil Galfond, who fell in 5th and 6th respectively. Galfond in particular is considered to be one of the best players in the game and renowned for his near-flawless hand reading skills. Like Kilpatrick and some of the others at the table, Galfond was originally a largely online player before Black Friday, going by “OMGClayAiken” and keeping company with Tom “durrrr” Dwan. He now has a reputation as a top-notch live Omaha cash game player.

The Shootout format itself is in all likelihood a contributing factor to finding so many former online pros at the final table. Whereas live players tend to have had most of their experience playing at a full table, single table sit-n-go’s were extremely popular online prior to Black Friday, so all of these players are intimately familiar with adjusting their game as the number of opponents declines.

Alex Weldon is a game designer by day and poker tournament wizard by night. You can read more from Alex at www.benefactum.ca and follow him on Twitter at @benefactumgames

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