Amateur poker player, Tony Veckey, outlasted a sold out field of 2,818 fellow competitors yesterday when he took down the 2009 World Series of Poker Event #54- the last $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold 'em preliminary event before the start of this year's Main Event.

The sold out field from Event #54 created a total prize pool of $3,846,570, which guaranteed the first place finisher would win over $650,000, the largest first prize of any $1,500 buy-in event this year, according to live reports from the event provided by www.worldseriesofpoker.com (powered by PokerNews). 

To win that top prize and his frist WSOP bracelet, Veckey had to survive a large field of players that ran the gamut from the newest and most inexperienced, to top notch pro tournament grinders, many of whom at least lasted long enough to survive the 298 person money bubble.  Some well known pros who cashed in the event include Theo Tran, Alexandre Gomes, Alex Bolotin, Amit Makhija, Juan Carlos Mortensen and Vivek "FLOG" Rajkumar, who made it all the way into Day 3, before having his hopes ultimately dashed with a 15th place finish.

The final table finish positions for Event #54- $1,500 No-Limit Hold 'em, were as follows:

1st.  Tony Veckey- $673,276

2nd.  Jason Wheeler- $418,122

3rd.  Joseph Chaplin- $276,029

4th.  Sergey Konkin- $195,213

5th.  Andrew Malott- $147,131

6th.  Christopher Bonita- $117,358

7th.  Christopher DeMaci- 98,933

8th.  David Jaoui- $87,855

9th.  Miha Remic- $81,970


Story by Mark Anderson

Sweet Tweets* the actual final $1,500 NL Hold 'em.

Last prelim. Of the year for me... My penultimate swansong.. Yea that sounds cool
-Devin Porter

called a bluff and he hit anyway, lost 4k
-Jeremiah Smith

A few guys at my table are super concerned with what average stack is. It is funny to me.
-Jonathan Little

9500.  New table now which looks softer than last. But guy on 1 side of me keeps coughing and guy on other side has dead-animal breath. Wow
 -Jon Friedberg

Sadly I actually thought I was going to do well today. I must have confused today with the main event. I'm coming for the big belt.
-Jonathan Little

Dear poker gods, i have 28,800 going into day 2 of the 1500, the joke is over plz give me a bracelet! Thanks, Amit.
-Amit Makhija

*A sampling of twitter posts from Event #54, courtesy of the PokerRoad Nation.