Nirvana Producer Steve Albini Beats Ferguson and Lisandro For $105,629

The final table of Event #31: $1,500 Seven Card Stud had plenty of reasons to be watched closely. There was a post-“apology” Chris Ferguson making his first final table of this series, a pull for fans and foes alike. There were also two ladies in the final nine, adding to the general sense than despite the overwhelmingly male fields in poker, there’s no glass ceiling in this game.

But the amateur’s favourite at the table was Steve Albini. We all love a good on-any-given-Sunday story, but when you know the amateur involved is the man who produced The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” that’s a whole other level of cool. That Albini was also the one to knock Ferguson out was really just icing on the cake.

Albini was by no means just lucky though. He was training with his mentor Matt Ashton and had picked up a thing or two playing mixed games in Chicago with the likes of Brandon Shack-Harris.

This training allowed him to beat out the field of 310 players and take home $105,629 of the $418,500 prize pool. Depending on where you get your poker news from he was either outrageously confident or charmingly humble.

“This year the stud event occurred simultaneously with the Seniors Event, and simultaneously with the $50K [Poker Players Championship]. So the field for the stud tournament, I think, was kind of historically weak, which allowed a sucker like me to make it to the final table," he said in one interview, while also telling reporters that he had been “playing stud my whole life. I love it, so I'm very comfortable playing stud.”

Despite the claim of a “historically weak field” Albini can take pride in not just keeping Ferguson and Lisandro from their seventh WSOP bracelets to the bracelet, but two other bracelet winners at final table alone: Michael Moore (no, not that one) and Frankie O’Dell.

Not bad going for an “amateur”.

Final Table Results: