The least experienced player at the Festa Al Lago Main Event final table became the latest youngster to make the World Poker Tour his coming out party.
Andreas Walnum, a 23-year old Norwegian professional, defeated 433 players to earn $1,090,025 and his first major-tournament win.
Walnum beat 33-year old Steve Wong for the title in just two hands of heads-up play. Walnum's winning hand was a pair of deuces that held up nicely when he spiked a third deuce on the flop.
Walnum, who doubled up five times on Day Four just to make the final six, held a 2-to-1 chip lead going into heads-up play.
Wong pocketed $542,000 for five days of work at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Wong also won Festa Al Lago Event #5 last week. The $5,000 No Limit Hold'em tournament win was worth $199,000.
Joe Pelton entered the final day as the chip leader and finished in third place. His bid to become the fifth player to win two WPT events in the same season was cut short when he doubled up Walnum and Wong early in the day.
The aggressive Pelton moved all in with A-9 and failed to improve against Wong's A-K. One hand later, Pelton was again on the wrong side of an all-in, falling to Walnum's set of sixes and giving the young Norwegian the chip lead.
Although he moved from the table's chip leader to the short stack on two consecutive hands, Pelton hung on, outlasting accomplished tournament professional Can Kim Hua, high-stakes professional David Baker and crafty amateur Chris Loveland.
Ryan McLane was a poker reporter for Casino City. Although he has a strong background in reporting, the same can't be said for his poker skills. He has never won a major tournament nor is he a professional player. He applied for this job thinking it was a joke, only to find it out that it's true, people will pay you to write about poker. His favorite word is ridiculous.
After receiving his BA in History from Stonehill College in Easton, MA, he somehow ended up freelance reporting for a couple years before being deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom III with the Massachusetts National Guard. He's back now and is a strong advocate of the phrase "God Bless America."
Currently, Ryan lives in Boston and occasionally makes international treks to cover tournament poker and news. Feature writing is his passion and there is no need to ask for his opinion, he'll probably offer it first - free of charge.
