Eric Taylor made the journey north over the Pink River from Texas into Oklahoma a worthwhile one. Taylor kicked off 2025 along with his first World Sequence of Poker Circuit victory at Choctaw On line casino Resort on Jan. 20. Alongside along with his first gold ring, Taylor additionally scored the highest prize value $259,721 to take his profession earnings near $350,000.
“I’ve been doing this a very long time, we now have a weekly sport. I play fairly a bit with lots of people round right here. I used to be ready for one thing like this for a very long time. I informed myself that I’d solely play those that will make an enormous rating like this. This one feels fairly nice,” Taylor informed WSOP reporters after the win.
The $1,700 buy-in no-limit maintain’em occasion had two beginning flights to construct up the entire subject dimension to 1,070 entries. The whole prize pool was set at $1,621,050 to high the assure of $1 million. The ultimate 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 midst of the pack when playing cards bought into the air on the ultimate day of play, and he stayed quiet as Alain Reed (eighth) and Chanliang Deng (seventh) each fell in the course of the early levels on the remaining desk.
The primary 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 following stretch of play noticed Taylor double up, after which he went on a powerful run to ultimately 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 firstly of heads-up play.
The ultimate battle was a protracted back-and-forth affair that lasted 4 hours. “It’s kinda humorous, earlier this event I used to be taking just a little little bit of flak for a number of the time I used to be taking preflop on some selections. This event I used to be focusing loads on timing. About midway by way of heads up it was getting actually grindy. There wasn’t a number of preflop play. She didn’t make any errors, performed actually good, so I attempted to hurry some issues up within the heads-up match. This time it was to attempt to throw the timing off from earlier.”
Taylor continued, “I caught a number of two pairs over her two pairs, it occurred fairly a number of occasions. She made a pair actually good calls on my bluffs, she referred to as fairly a little bit of mine. It was a superb battle.”
The ultimate two gamers traded the chip lead a number of occasions, and Taylor doubled a number of occasions to outlive earlier than the gamers took a dinner break. A short while after they returned, the ultimate hand of the event lastly performed out. Lee bought all in preflop with 5
4 within the gap, and Taylor had her coated holding A
2. The ultimate board was dealt OkJ
10
2A, and Taylor gained the event 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’s a have a look at the payouts and POY factors awarded on the remaining desk:
Place
Participant
Earnings
POY Factors
1
Eric Taylor
$259,721
960
2
Sung Lee
$173,145
800
3
Thomas Romeo
$120,563
640
4
Arthur Morris
$85,387
480
5
Cody Bartlett
$61,527
400
6
Kannon McCavit
$45,120
320
7
Changliang Deng
$33,686
240
8
Alain Raad
$25,611
160
9
Quang Pham
$19,837
80
This subsequent WSOP Circuit cease is already underway at Thunder Valley On line casino Resort in Lincoln, California. The event sequence runs from Jan. 16-27, with the $1,700 important occasion happening Jan. 24-27.
Photograph Credit score: World Sequence of Poker
