The world was watching the action throughout the night on the final day of the record-breaking WSOP Main Event, where 10,112 players started, the prizepool was $94,041,600 and the winner was awaiting a whopping $10 million.
That amount, along with the diamond bracelet, was up for grabs for the last three players. They were led by Niklas Astedt, the top online player with more than $48 million in winnings. He was kept company by four-time WSOPC winner Jonathan Tamayo and amateur player Jordan Girff with winnings of less than $50,000.
| Player | Country | Stack | BB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niklas Astedt | Sweden | 223,000,000 | 74 |
| Jonathan Tamayo | USA | 197,000,000 | 66 |
| Jordan Griff | USA | 187,000,000 | 62 |
At the start of this battle, of course, everyone was favouring Niklas Astedt as the winner, which is understandable as he had the most experience of the players. Ironically, however, it was he who was the first to exit the tournament. He was sent home with a hand in which he found and his opponent Jordan Griff found pocket nines. On the flop Griff hit another nine and after the turn sent his entire 159 million stack into the fray, covering Niklas by just 500,000. Astedt thought for a long time and eventually called. The rescue in the form of a queen didn't arrive, however, and Niklas Astedt surprisingly finished in third place with a $4,000,000 reward. Niklas Astedt is one of those players who has a lot of success and tens of millions of dollars in winnings, but he is still missing a WSOP bracelet.
Heads-Up play has officially been reached at the @WSOP Main Event Final Table!
- PokerGO (@PokerGO) July 17, 2024
Who will win it all? 👀
📺: https://t.co/s5mI1gdqOt pic.twitter.com/YMpjkf4Kp
What did the heads-up look like?
Heading into heads-up play, Jordan Griff was the chipleader, holding a stack as high as 432,500,000 (108BB), while Jonathan Tamayo had "only" 174,500,000 (43BB). So it was looking like another beautiful Chris Moneymaker-style story. Jordan Griff is, after all, an amateur gambler from Illinois who used to work for Pepsi and now works as a supply chain manager for Meta. His highest poker win was $18,000 and now he had a unique chance to become a world champion.
On the other side stood Jonathan Tamayo, a professional poker player from Humble, Texas, with over $2.3 million in winnings and four WSOPC rings, who had 2015 Main Event champion Joe McKeehen as his roommate in Las Vegas. Joe also gave his roommate some valuable advice ahead of the final table.
During heads-up play, the players moved their chips up and down amongst each other, alternating the chipleader position between them. In the end, however, it was the last hand that crowned a new champion. Jordan Griff found himself under a hand and Jonathan Tamayo . After the flop Griff raised to 40 million, to which Tamayo responded with an all-in for about 375,000,000. Griff called his 230,000,000. After the board was completed and there was no more plot, we met the new WSOP 2024 Main Event champion, Jonathan Tamayo, who took home $10 million, a diamond bracelet, and worldwide fame. Jordan Griff took home $6,000,000 for his second place finish.
The 2024 @WSOP Main Event Champion is Jonathan Tamayo 🔥🔥🔥@driverseati takes home $10,000,000 and the Main Event Bracelet! pic.twitter.com/AfbdyhOsZY
- PokerGO (@PokerGO) July 18, 2024
Jonathan Tamayo earned himself a banner with his picture on it at the Horseshoe Las Vegas Event Center as the 55th WSOP Main Event winner, with names like Moss, Slim, Pearson, Brunson, Chan, Hellmuth, Moneymaker, and of course his buddy Joe McKeehen keeping him company.
Jonathan's success could also be briefly described as: From discarded queens to winning 8-3. In fact, when playing in the last ten players, Jonathan threw away his queens one raise at a time preflop, causing controversy amongst the players. Now he managed not to fold and win the tournament with 8-3.
And what was the winner's reaction?
"This isn't real! The picture of my roommate is from 2015. We both already have banners. What in the world just happened. Joe told me: Play your game. I realized you're never going to play perfect poker and strange things happen. And it's just surreal. I remember... after the 4th day, I wasn't supposed to be here anymore. There was a crazy series of events that happened on Day 4 where I was all-in, and if one player didn't fold, I wasn't here," the new champion said after his win.
Runner-up Jordan Griff also gave a statement to the media at the end, saying, "I'm really proud of myself. I'm surprised that I could play at this level and make it this far."
We have nothing to do but congratulate the new champion and we will be keeping a close eye on his future achievements.
| Place | Player | Country | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jonathan Tamayo | USA | $10,000,000 |
| 2 | Jordan Griff | USA | $6,000,000 |
| 3 | Niklas Astedt | Sweden | $4,000,000 |
| 4 | Jason Sagle | Canada | $3,000,000 |
| 5 | Boris Angelov | Bulgaria | $2,500,000 |
| 6 | Andres Gonzalez | Spain | $2,000,000 |
| 7 | Brian Kim | USA | $1,500,000 |
| 8 | Joe Serock | USA | $1,250,000 |
| 9 | Malo Latinois | France | $1,000,000 |
Source - wsop, pokernews, twitter, pokergo
