The 2021 WSOP Event #46: $800 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack attracted 2,053 entries by the end of late reg. Of those two-thousand buy-ins, only one of them was Chad Norton's. This was his very first time playing a live World Series of Poker event. First time player, and still he won the event.
"To be honest I've only played in one WPT event," Norton said after the initial wave of euphoria hit. "And this was my first ever live WSOP tournament. I play mostly online but I came in on such a downswing, so to be able to come in and win my first ever WSOP tournament feels amazing."
With 2,053 buy-ins, the prize pool was $1,445,312 after the 12% rake was pulled.
With 30-minute blinds in play, the deep starting stacks didn't stay deep for long. By the close of play on Day 1, there were only 120 players still in the running. With 82.1 million worth of chips in play, that meant an average stack of 684k, with blinds at 10k-25k and a 25k big blind ante.
The top 308 players cashed. Eric Baldwin, James Moore, J. J. Liu, Ryan Reiss, K. L. Cleeton, and David "Bakes" Baker were among those who made the money.
Locking horns with Steve Lemma
Norton was by no means a shoe-in for the title. A large pot near the end of Day 1 knocked him down from near the top of the leaderboard to half the average stack.
Still, he built his stack back up, shouldering his way back into the action.
By the start of heads-up play Norton had 68 million to Steve Lemma's 18 million. With the blinds at 400k-800k, Lemma didn't have much room to make moves.
When he picked up Q♠9♣, he re-raised Norton all in and was called. Norton showed A♠8❤️.
The dealer burned and turned. The flop came J❤️A♣3♦️, the turn came 5♣, and the river was a meaningless 3❤️.
"This is surreal. It was a quick tournament with a lot of ups and downs," Norton said of the final hand. "But it was a lot of fun and I'm just really grateful to come out with the win."
Lemma won $132,802 for second place.
2021 WSOP Event #46: $800 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack complete final table results
| Position | Player Name | Payout |
| 1st | Chad Norton | $214,830 |
| 2nd | Steve Lemma | $132,802 |
| 3rd | Andres Jeckeln | $98,269 |
| 4th | Narimaan Ahmadi | $73,271 |
| 5th | Ivan Uzunov | $55,279 |
| 6th | Kevin Wang | $42,031 |
| 7th | Jordyn Miller | $32,254 |
| 8th | William Blais | $24,982 |
| 9th | Joshua Herman | $19,533 |
Featured image source: PokerGO
