It was a “good run” but not “the run,” vlogger and CardsChat forum poster Matt Vaughan said after being eliminated in 47th place out of 6,260 players in the WSOP’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Monster Stack, which is playing down to a final table on Wednesday.
It was good enough to finish in the top 1 percent of all participants, and paid $19,145 — not a bad haul for a low-stakes player with just more than $107,000 in career winnings from 15 cashes since 2015. (His biggest payday was for $33,795, for finishing 5th in an $1,100 MSPT Milwaukee tournament, which also happened to be his first career cash.)
But still, he didn’t quite reach the life-changing money level, and for the Massachusetts native and current Baltimore-area resident who had enough chips late in the tourney to briefly see a more than $1 million 1st place prize within reach, the quick and harsh ending understandably stung.
If deflated enthusiasm is part of the game, Vaughan’s run in the Monster Stack captured a quintessential poker experience that repeats itself day after day, hour after hour at the Rio during the World Series of Poker.
It’s always unreal how fast these things can end… pretty annoying but I felt easy spot, and I’m stone crushed by a guy who covers me. Cold 4b jam 99 from BB vs SB 3b and BTN open. SB has KK and board gives me nothing. I know it’s a “good run” but thought it would be “THE RUN.”
— Matt Vaughan (@mEVpoker) June 27, 2018
From Crushing It to Crushed
Vaughan may have felt like he was on a roller coaster at Six Flags on Tuesday, not at a casino. His Day Three seemed as up and down as Bitcoin.
Vaughan began the day with a healthy 660,000-chip stack, well above average, but was quickly down to 280,000 after losing two straight coinflips. Before the first break, he was back to his starting stack, then up to 900,000 shortly after the break before again losing a massive pot to drop back to around 400,000.
“Chips have been flying around over here,” he told CardsChat on the second break of the day. “I played like three flips in the first two or three levels of the day. And then there was a hand I got in aces against kings and won that for almost 900k, and then almost immediately after that, I was in the big blind with ace-king, got it all in pre-flop against ace-nine, and he rivered a nine.”
Known on the CardsChat forum as “Scourrge,” Vaughan, a cash game regular, experienced the many highs and lows of tournament poker on Tuesday. The roller coaster ride continued throughout the session. His stack peaked at over 2.6 million at the final break before he was eliminated in 47th place when his pocket 9s in the big blind ran into pocket kings.
What does it feel like to go home with $19,000 instead of the $1 million you had your eyes set on?
First emotion was just a bit of sadness about having to stop playing. Huge gratitude for how far I made it and to everyone who was following along and giving support. Celebratory beer, and then probably heading home for an early bed time.
— Matt Vaughan (@mEVpoker) June 27, 2018
For every joyful bracelet winner at the WSOP, there are countless individuals – “kids with a dream,” as Norman Chad would say – who suffer the agony of defeat. Vaughan experienced both emotions on Tuesday – earning a nice payday but losing out on an opportunity to become wealthy.
Still, as he admits, it was a “good run.”
Finishing in 47th place out of 6,260 players — placing Vaughan well within the top 1 percent of finishers — is no small feat, even though in the end it didn’t deliver the $1 million he briefly believed was really in his reach.
WSOP Monster Stack Chip Leaders After Day Three
1 Vitor Rangel (USA) 8,920,000
2 James Carroll (USA) 8,165,000
3 Harald Sammer (Austria) 7,170,000
4 Rittie Chuaprasert (USA) 5,785,000
5 Michael Benko (Canada) 5,250,000*29 players remain with two days of play left.
Vloggable Experience
Many know Matt from his poker vlogs on YouTube. He has over 10,000 subscribers, but other than for one video published this summer has been MIA the past few weeks.
“It’s pretty tough to do because I had been playing for 12- or 13-hour days recently,” he said.
He did say he plans to create a new vlog from his WSOP experience in coming days.
Vaughan’s videos usually take place from his hometown casino, Maryland Live. Most of the content is hand analysis, but he went off-topic in a recent vlog episode and addressed a controversial poker issue: Chris Ferguson’s pre-WSOP apology video.
“Start off with something better than that video,” he said when asked what Ferguson could do to deserve respect from the poker community. “Start off with something that is a little more heartfelt and takes into account the impact on the community and acknowledges the fact that he can’t make up for it.”
Perhaps, Matt will have an opportunity to address this issue with Ferguson if the two end up at a final table somewhere this summer.
That’s the dream, right?
