The tournament world is entering its post-WSOP phase, but that doesn’t mean we’re short of big winners. Indeed, with a final tale of WSOP success, bad beats turning into big wins, and players enjoying the craic in Ireland, there are plenty of top performances to marvel over. So, if you’re ready, here are CardsChat’s Big Winners of the Week ending Sunday, July 24.
Benjamin Kaupp
WSOP Tournament of Champions
Bally’s and Paris
$250,000
Meet the WSOP’s new champion of champions. Kaupp earned that title, the biggest win of his career, and his first bracelet last Thursday after winning the Tournament of Champions. He did it by beating a field of 470 WSOP winners the Tournament of Champions, a freeroll open to anyone who won a WSOP bracelet or Circuit event over the past year. Kaupp did just that in February by winning a $215 PKO event during the WSOP Pennsylvania’s Online Circuit series.
David Rosenbloom
$500,000 Guarantee
Summer Poker Series
Bicycle Casino
$147,635
The Bike wrapped up its latest tournament series with a massive finale event that nearly doubled its guarantee. In the end, it was well-known LA regular David Rosenbloom who finished on top, earning the outright victory after a heads-up chop was declined. Rosenbloom took home the biggest prize of his career after defeating a field of nearly 2,995 players. This victory puts Rosenbloom at over $800K in live tournament earnings.
Thor William Holm Morstol
DeepStack Championship Series
UltimateStack Event
Venetian
$121,166
Even if he wasn’t one of our biggest winners of the week, it would be hard to overlook Morstol. He is Thor, after all. While we’re not convinced the Norwegian is the actual God of Thunder, he has been lighting up the poker world with a long string of four and five-figure live tournament cashes dating back to 2014. Last Tuesday, he rumbled his way to the biggest win of his career after besting a field of 1,033 entries in the Venetian’s $800 event in Las Vegas.
Ryan Messick
WSOP Run
WSOP.com PA & Bally’s and Paris
$136,979
Messick may not have won the WSOP Tournament of Champions, but his story is remarkable enough that it’s worth telling. The American, known online as Gravity355, had just over $100K in live earnings before his recent run. However, in the space of five days, he more than doubled his career total. It all started with a second-place finish in WSOP Pennsylvania’s $777 Lucky 7’s event on July 16. Messick used $500 of the $12,679 he won to enter the WSOP’s Summer Saver the next day. This time, he won the event for $24,300 and booked himself a seat in the Tournament of Champions. Within hours, he was on a plane from Pennsylvania to Las Vegas. Fast-forward a few days and he finished third in the freeroll for $100K to cap off a stunning few days of poker.
Graton Casino Poker Players
Graton Casino
$110,650
Winning is winning in poker, regardless of how a prize falls into your lap, which is why the players at California’s Graton Casino weren’t complaining when a bad beat jackpot dropped last week. The casino has paid out more than $2 million in jackpots over the years and, on Wednesday, it added another six-figure sum to that total. As per the rules, everyone playing at a qualifying table when the bad beat hit was entitled to a share of the prize.
Paul Mooney
Irish Poker Tour
Greenisle Hotel
€10,420
($10,641)
Mooney is a regular on the Irish poker scene and that experience showed in Dublin last week. A total of 381 unique entries and 160 re-entries pushed the €150 ($155) tournament’s prize pool way above its €40,000 ($41,000) guarantee. That allowed Mooney to match his previous biggest score after a three-way deal with Sorie Kamran and James Tarrant.
William Hung
Apollo Jett Grand Championship
South Point Casino
$125,000+ raised for Ante4Autism
One-time American Idol wannabe Hung banged his way through the competition at the South Point Poker Room in Las Vegas while helping to raise money for a good cause on Sunday night. We’re still trying to figure out what his take-home was for this performance against a star-studded field that included Norman Chad, David Williams, Jeff Madsen, and Jacqueline Laurita of “Real Housewives of New Jersey.” Hung, now a motivational speaker, took the victory after besting defending champion Chip Jett, who finished second this year. The tournament, hosted by Jett’s wife Karina, is named in honor of their son, who tragically drowned at age 4 in 2010. In 14 years, the annual event has raised more than $1 million for local and national Autism charities around the country.
Daniel Smyth and Kevin Taylor contributed to this report. Know a big winner we missed? tips@cardschat.com
