Eric Taylor Wins First World Series Of Poker Circuit Title Of 2025 In Choctaw

Eric Taylor made the journey north over the Red River from Texas into Oklahoma a worthwhile one. Taylor kicked off 2025 along with his first World Series of Poker Circuit victory at Choctaw Casino Resort on Jan. 20. Along along with his first gold ring, Taylor additionally scored the highest prize price $259,721 to take his profession earnings near $350,000.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, we have a weekly game. I play quite a bit with a lot of people around here. I was waiting for something like this for a long time. I told myself that I would only play the ones that would make a huge score like this. This one feels pretty great,” Taylor advised WSOP reporters after the win.

The $1,700 buy-in no-limit maintain’em occasion had two beginning flights to construct up the overall discipline dimension to 1,070 entries. The complete prize pool was set at $1,621,050 to high the assure of $1 million. The remaining 162 gamers all min-cashed for $3,404.

Day 2 noticed 111 gamers return with a payout of not less than $4,430 ensured, and by the tip of play simply eight remained within the hunt for the title. Notables that made a deep run on the penultimate day of play included Quang Pham (ninth), Jared Ingles (14th), Nathanael Kogel (fifteenth), John Land (18th), John Fagg (nineteenth), and Hunter Cichy (twenty ninth).

Taylor was in the course of the pack when playing cards obtained into the air on the ultimate day of play, and he stayed quiet as Alain Reed (eighth) and Chanliang Deng (seventh) each fell through the early levels on the remaining desk.

The first knockout punch for Taylor got here when he despatched Kannon McCavit to the rail in sixth place. Debbie Lee then took out her second opponent of the day when she eradicated Cody Bartlett in fifth place to take the chip lead on the first break, whereas Taylor was on the backside of the ultimate 4.

The subsequent stretch of play noticed Taylor double up, after which he went on a powerful run to finally take the chip lead earlier than Lee took out gold-ring winner Arthur Morris in fourth place to tug near Taylor. Third place went to gold-ring winner Thomas Romeo a short while later, with Taylor scoring the bustout to provide him a 25.5 million to 17.3 million for Lee at first of heads-up play.

The remaining battle was a protracted back-and-forth affair that lasted 4 hours. “It’s kinda funny, earlier this tournament I was taking a little bit of flak for some of the time I was taking preflop on some decisions. This tournament I was focusing a lot on timing. About halfway through heads up it was getting really grindy. There wasn’t a lot of preflop play. She didn’t make any mistakes, played really good, so I tried to speed some things up in the heads-up match. This time it was to try to throw the timing off from earlier.”

Taylor continued, “I caught a lot of two pairs over her two pairs, it happened quite a few times. She made a couple really good calls on my bluffs, she called quite a bit of mine. It was a good battle.”

The remaining two gamers traded the chip lead a number of instances, and Taylor doubled a couple of instances to outlive earlier than the gamers took a dinner break. A short while after they returned, the ultimate hand of the match lastly performed out. Lee obtained all in preflop with 54 within the gap, and Taylor had her coated holding A2. The remaining board was dealt OkayJ102A, and Taylor gained the match with two pair. Lee was awarded $173,145 for her hard-fought battle to second place, and her profession earnings now stand near $225,000.

Here is a have a look at the payouts and POY factors awarded on the remaining desk:

This subsequent WSOP Circuit cease is already underway at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California. The match sequence runs from Jan. 16-27, with the $1,700 primary occasion going down Jan. 24-27.

Photo Credit: World Series of Poker