We’re in the midst of the biggest poker tournament of the year – the 2019 World Series of Poker – which means plenty of winners are coming down the pipe. Here are three notable players who became champs this past week:
Russian Online Poker Professional Korenov Wins Marathon Event
Roman Korenev, a Russian poker pro best known for his online success, fought his way to a World Series of Poker Marathon event title this week in Rio. Korenev, who earned his first career gold bracelet with the victory, took home $477,401 for the win.
Korenev managed to outlast the field of 1,083 players at the Rio Casino to earn the biggest portion of the $2,553,714 prize pool. The 30-year-old gambling professional, who is from the city of Krasnoyarsk, had previously posted a best finish of fourth place at the 2016 European Poker Tour Barcelona when he netted just under $200K for that victory. With the addition of his biggest cash prize to date, Korenev has now earned just north of $2.1 million in career live tournament earnings.
The money wasn’t easily earned as Korenev’s battle with upwards of a thousand other players. That included a heads-up battle with American Jared Koppel that lasted more than five hours. Unlike some other tournaments, the slow-moving structure saw each player begin with 26,000 in chips, with each level of the marathon event lasting 100 minutes.
Zedan Dominates Final Table To Become First El Salvadorian To Win WSOP Bracelet
El Salvador isn’t exactly recognised around the world as being a major player when it comes to poker on the international stage. However, that could begin to change thanks to a brilliant performance from a man named Luis Zedan.
Zedan became the first player from El Salvador to win a World Series of Poker bracelet. The veteran poker player dominated the final table on an unscheduled fourth day of play to earn $236,673 for his efforts. He overcame 1,526 entries to win the $1,000 pot-limit Omaha with a brilliant performance.
That’s some kind of confidence – especially coming from El Salvador, a country that had never provided a WSOP before this week.
Cazayous Wins 2019 WSOP $3K Six-Max No-Limit Hold’em Event
French poker pro Thomas Cazayous was the big winner of this year’s World Series Of Poker $3,000 Six-Max No-Limit Hold’em event. Cazayous picked up his first career WSOP bracelet as well as an impressive $414,766 first place cash prize. While the tournament was scheduled to run for four days, Cazayous needed only three days to overcome a field of 754 entries in order to win the event.
The 24-year-old Frenchman, who was quiet and stoic throughout the entire event, never looked worried that he was going to falter at any point along the way to clinching his first gold bracelet. It was just his first final table appearance of the summer and his fifth cash at the summer series overall. After taking down a pair of past bracelet winners at the final table, including Angel Guillen and Upeshka De Silva, it’s clear that Cazayous has what it takes to compete with some of the big boys on the WSOP Tour moving forward as a young star with a bright future.