Daniel Weinman has received the biggest World Series of Poker predominant occasion ever held.
The 35-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia defeated a report area of 10,043 entries that got here to the Paris and Horseshoe Las Vegas for the 2023 WSOP $10,000 buy-in no-limit maintain’em predominant occasion to seize the championship gold bracelet and the huge $12.1 million first-place prize.
“It doesn’t feel real. I mean, there’s so much luck in a poker tournament. I thought I played very well, but there were so many hands where I was just incredibly lucky for the situations to arise,” Weinamn mentioned after popping out on high.
“You need so much luck to win any poker tournament. There have been three or four hands in this tournament where I got unbelievably lucky. And you just kind of feel like, you know, maybe it’s my time,” mentioned a smiling Weinman. “Whether that’s because I’ve put in the time for close to 20 years now or something else, it feels so incredible.”
The Georgia Tech engineering diploma holder now has greater than $15.8 million in lifetime earnings to his identify after this career-defining victory. This win additionally gave him his second profession bracelet to go along with his two World Poker Tour predominant occasion titles. His first bracelet win got here final summer time when he took down a $1,000 pot-limit Omaha occasion for $255,359.
This predominant occasion win was the primary by an American since John Cynn got here out on high in 2018, with latest champions being Norwegian (Espen Jorstad, 2022), German (Koray Aldemir, 2021 and Hossein Ensan, 2019), and Argentinian (Damian Salas, 2020).
Weinman got here into the ultimate day of this occasion in second chip place among the many final three contenders. Click HERE for a recap of the primary day of motion from the ultimate desk.
Adam Walton was the shortest stack to start the day, however was nonetheless removed from in desperation mode with 83 huge blinds to start out. The 40-year-old skilled poker participant from Seattle, Washington had really joined Weinman in surpassing start-of-day chip chief Steven Jones. Weinman solely had Walton coated by simply over seven huge blinds when the pivotal hand of the day arose.
With blinds of 1,250,000-2,500,000 with an enormous blind ante of 2,500,000, Jones raised to six,000,000 on the button with the Q6 and Walton flat known as from the small blind with 88. Weinman regarded down at AA and three-bet to 27,000,000 within the huge blind. Jones folded and Walton four-bet shoved for 209,500,000. Weinman snap-called along with his pocket aces and was in nice form to take an enormous lead heading into heads-up play.
The board digicam down 7539Okay and Weinman’s pocket aces held to earn him the huge pot and the elimination.
Check out a replay of the hand from PokerGO, the unique livestreaming supplier of the WSOP.
WOW!
Nearly 200 huge blinds get within the center earlier than the flop between Daniel Weinman (
notontilt09</a>) and Adam Walton. <br><br>And we are now heads up for the title in the 2023 <a href="https://twitter.com/WSOP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">
WSOP Main Event.– Watch Live Here: https://t.co/6Gci7QpvfH pic.twitter.com/izmKVuJTgL
— PokerGO (@PokerGO) July 17, 2023
Walton earned $4,000,000 because the third-place finisher. This was his second deep run in the primary occasion, having positioned forty second in 2021 for $163,900. He now has greater than $4.9 million in lifetime stay match earnings to his identify after this momentous consequence.
“It was the first hand I had really put a lot of chips in the pot and came in with the squeeze after the Steven open and the Adam flat. And I know that Adam likes to flat some big hands, so I ended up sizing up a little bit, kind of with the hopes that he would try to take advantage of all the dead money in there. And I don’t know if it was me inducing him or him just deciding that it was too good of a hand to not go with, but it all ended up working out so well,” mentioned Weinman of the important thing conflict.
With that, Weinman entered heads-up play with 443,000,000 to the 159,500,000 of Jones. The championship bracelet and the pile of cash had been set out and the ultimate two started their battle for the consideration of being this 12 months’s world champ.
It took simply 24 arms for Weinman to transform his chip lead into the title. He nonetheless had greater than a 2:1 lead when the ultimate hand arose. At the identical blind stage, Jones opened to 7,000,000 on the button with J8 and Weinman known as with OkayJ. The flop got here down J52 and Weinman checked. Jones wager 6,000,000 and Weinman check-raised to 18,500,000. Jones known as and the 4 rolled off on the flip. Weinman wager 38,000,000 and Jones went into the tank for a couple of minutes earlier than shifting all-in for 146,000,000. Weinman took nearly 30 seconds earlier than making the decision along with his high pair and superior kicker.
Jones wanted assist, however the A on the river didn’t provide any and he was eradicated in second place, incomes $6,500,000. The 35-year-old actual property dealer and poker fanatic from Scottsdale, Arizona now has greater than $6.7 million in whole match earnings. This runner-up exhibiting surpassed his earlier high rating of $57,425 that he earned for a ninth-place end within the 2018 WSOP Colossus.
In addition to the {hardware} and the cash, Weinman was additionally awarded a bevy of rankings factors because the champion of this occasion. The 3,600 Card Player Player of the Year factors he secured had been sufficient to catapult him into nineteenth place within the 2023 POY standings introduced by Global Poker.
Weinman additionally locked up 2,300 PokerGO Tour factors for the rating, sufficient to catapult him into the lead on the high-stakes-centric PGT leaderboard.
This was Weinman’s first closing desk of the 12 months. He really took a break through the center of the sequence this 12 months, and nearly didn’t come again for the primary occasion.
“This is my either 15th or 16th series and every year before this I’ve been here from event one to the last event. By the time the main event comes around, I’m burnt out,” mentioned Weinman. “About two weeks into the series this year, uh, I told my girlfriend Sarah how I was feeling and she said ‘come home’. So I did and life went back to normal and I was honestly on the fence about even coming back and playing this tournament.”
“Shaun Deeb was pivotal in convincing me to come out. Sarah’s very new to all of this. I’m trying to explain like, ’I’m gonna go, but I’m never gonna win’” he continued. “I’ve cashed this tournament one out of 15 times, most likely I’m just gonna go lose $10,000 and fly home. And she was behind it. You’d never dream this up.”
Weinman walks away as poker’s world champion, having topped the biggest area within the historical past of this storied occasion to seize the most important high prize ever awarded on this contest. Despite the momentous achievement, he appears dedicated to staying grounded. He even plans on returning to his work at RF Poker, which offers with RFID tables for poker broadcasts.
“I don’t think life is gonna change very much for me. I’m a very happy person. I enjoy very simple things back home. I will be at work next week, maybe play a little more golf, maybe travel a little bit more, but life is gonna be very similar… with a few extra dollars in the bank.”
Here is a have a look at the total outcomes from the 2023 WSOP predominant occasion closing desk:
Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points | PGT Points |
1 | Daniel Weinman | $12,100,000 | 3,600 | 2,300 |
2 | Steven Jones | $6,500,000 | 3,000 | 1,700 |
3 | Adam Walton | $4,000,000 | 2,400 | 1,500 |
4 | Jan Peter Jachtmann | $3,000,000 | 1,800 | 1,400 |
5 | Ruslan Prydryk | $2,400,000 | 1,500 | 1,300 |
6 | Dean Hutchison | $1,850,000 | 1,200 | 1,250 |
7 | Toby Lewis | $1,425,000 | 900 | 1,200 |
8 | Juan Maceiras | $1,125,000 | 600 | 1,200 |
9 | Daniel Holzner | $900,000 | 300 | 900 |
Check out Weinman’s post-win video interview beneath:
Visit the Card Player 2023 World Series of Poker web page for schedules, information, interviews, and the most recent occasion outcomes. WSOP protection sponsored by Global Poker.