Dan Wagner Wins the 2016 Seneca Fall Poker Classic Main Event for $64,882
West Seneca, New York's Dan Wagner took down the2016 Seneca Fall Poker Classic Main Event inside the Niagara Falls Poker Room at the Seneca Niagara Resort & Casino Monday.
The 29-year-old professional poker player won his way into the event making the final table of a $200 tournament at the Fall Classic Warm-Up here in October and essentially freerolled his way to a $64,882 victory.
The event drew 300 entries and reentries over two starting flights, creating a $264,810 prize pool that paid the top 27. They played down to a final nine on Sunday with Wagner building a massive chip lead heading into the final table.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dan Wagner | $64,882 |
| 2 | Cameron Bartolotta | $40,781 |
| 3 | Veerab Zakarian | $29,394 |
| 4 | Mark Allott | $21,714 |
| 5 | Nicholas Potwora | $16,153 |
| 6 | Jay Clark | $12,181 |
| 7 | Sean Gomez | $9,533 |
| 8 | Peter Bogulski | $7,415 |
| 9 | Brian Bowen | $5,958 |
Before Monday, Wagner was a perennial bridesmaid at Seneca Niagara, and although he is among the area's top earning pros, this was his first big win after final table appearances in the 2016 Western New York Poker Challenge and 2015 Summer Slam Main Events over the past 18 months.
Wagner went wire-to-wire at the final table, steamrolling his way to the win.
Cameron Bartolotta doubled through Veerab Zakarian to start the day before Brian Bowen took ninth, losing a race with tens for all his chips.
Wagner busted Peter Bogulski and Sean Gomez in quick succession before Jay Clark sent his short stack over to Nicholas Potwora, bowing out sixth. Wagner got all those chips winning a race against Potwora's sevens to send him home fifth, then took a massive lead into three-handed play when Bartolotta busted Mark Allott in fourth.
Zakarian became the next victim of Wagner's domination, taking third after getting it in with a dominated ace, and although Bartolotta put up a fine fight, he ran a big ace into Wagner's queens and could not improve, taking second place less than a half hour into heads-up play.
In the end, Wagner got the monkey off his back, another big score for the record books and his winner photo on the cover of an upcoming issue of CardPlayer Magazine.
PokerNews expects to return to Seneca Niagara for the 2017 Western New York Poker Challenge in the spring.
