The trophy case in the Montes household gained a new addition on Monday, as Jose Montes emerged victorious at Maryland Live! Casino to capture the WPTDeepStacks Main Event title and $95,032 first-place prize. Montes topped a field of 338 entries to score the lion’s share of the $439,780 prize pool.
“It feels great,” a humble Montes said after the win. “I got lucky a bunch of times, and it feels great.”
Season 4 WPTDeepStacks Final Table Results
1st: Jose Montes – $95,032
2nd: Nicholas Verderamo – $66,583
3rd: Karim Bevans – $42,835
4th: Justin Liberto – $27,310
5th: Brett Apter – $21,065
6th: Elia Ahmadian – $17,459
7th: Sandy Nyunt – $14,513
8th: Joe Frampus – $11,874
9th: James St. Hilaire – $9,499
Montes joined the $1,500 Main Event field towards the close of registration on Day 1b and went on to finish the day with a promising stack of 141,500. On Day 2, he was up and down but managed to maneuver his way to the final table with 647,000 in chips. That was good for sixth place on the leaderboard, but Montes proved he was far from out of it.
Just a few hands into the final table Montes had just about doubled his stack. He then eliminated Joe Frampus in eighth place when he got lucky with the 
against the 
. After that, Brett Apter took out Elia Ahmadian and Sandy Nyunt on the same hand to cut the field down to five, but Montes was the short stack and the only player under seven figures.
Apter was eventually eliminated in fifth place by Justin Liberto, and then, with four players left, Montes doubled up to take the lead. On the hand that vaulted him to the front of the pack, Montes held pocket queens to the pocket jacks of Nicholas Verderamo.
Liberto would bust in fourth place, which kept him from overtaking Michael Graffeo for first place in the Season 4 WPTDeepStacks Player of the Year race. Nevertheless, Liberto moved into second with 1,100 points. Graffeo’s lead stood with 1,200 points.
During three-handed play, Montes fell to become the short stack once again. Karim Bevans, who began the final table as the leader, built his stack up to control half the chips in play, but that didn’t deter Montes from fighting hard. He worked his way up from the bottom and then doubled through Bevans to retake the lead. Bevans was then eliminated in third place at the hands of Montes.
Montes began heads-up play with a big lead, and it didn’t take long for him to finish off Verderamo. On the final hand, Verderamo was all in with the 
against the 
for Montes. The sevens held for Montes to give him the victory.
Verderamo took home $66,583 for his efforts.
In addition to the first-place payday, which includes a $3,000 package to the Season 4 WPTDeepStacks Championship event, Montes picked up 800 points in the Season 4 WPTDeepStacks Player of the Year race and moved into the top 10 with 850 points overall.
Next up for WPTDeepStacks is a trip to Turlock Poker Room for a $100,000 guaranteed, $1,100 buy-in Main Event May 12-14. Click here for more information.