From left field: The unknown player who won a WSOP six-max event for $300,000

From-left-field-The-unknown-player-who-won-a-WSOP-six-max-event-for-$300,000

What does it take in your mind to win a World Series of Poker bracelet? From an unflinching poker game to superstar hero folds and brilliant bluffs, you might expect that only the very best and most well-known names in the world win one. If that’s your current opinion, be prepared for it to change.

From-left-field-The-unknown-player-who-won-a-WSOP-six-max-event-for-$300,000The latest winner of a much-coveted World Series of Poker bracelet, Jim Lefteruk, doesn’t have a single live cash on The Hendon Mob website, and nor has he won a cent on GGPoker until this point, which is impressive in itself given that they’re running deep into the 54 events they’re hosting during this 2020 WSOP Online Series.

The event in question was Event #73 of the WSOP 2020 Online Series. Costing $1,000 to enter, there were 2,202 entries and a prizepool of just over $2 million on the line. Just 314 players ended up in the money after the bubble burst, and there were some big names amongst them, such as Shawn Buchanan, Juha Helppi, Galen Hall, Daniel Dvoress, Danny Tang, Anson Tsang, Joao Vieira, Kevin MacPhee and Timur Margolin.

When the final table was reached, Jim Lefteruk really took over, wielding the axe time and time again, making it almost a done deal by the time heads-up was reached, with the Canadian holding 90% of the chips, and the eventual runner-up Endrit Geci from the U.K. never being able to fight back into contention.

WSOP Event #73 Final Table Results: 

Place 

Player 

Country 

Prize 

1st 

Jim Lefteruk 

Canada 

$299,511 

2nd

Endrit Geci 

United Kingdom 

$223,978 

3rd 

Jorge Abreu 

Portugal 

$161,042 

4th 

Ivan Luca 

Argentina 

$115,791 

5th

Andrii Derzhypilskyi 

Ukraine 

$83,254 

6th 

Markku Koplimaa 

Estonia 

$59,861 

7th 

Seungmook Jung 

South Korea 

$43,040 

8th

Patrick Kennedy 

United Kingdom 

$30,946 

9th

Anant Purohit 

India 

$22,250 

In the $1,500-entry Limit Hold’em event, the winner was Ajay Chabra, who won $77,475 when he outlasted 336 opponents including Shannon Shorr, Mike Watson and his heads-up opponent Carter Swidler. Others such as GGPoker ambassadors Daniel ‘Kid Poker’ Negreanu and Felipe Ramos as well as Yuri Dzivielevski, Benny Glaser, James Chen, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson Mike Leah, Juha Helppi and Phil Hellmuth fell short of the money, but some others, such as Luke Schwartz, Georgios Sotiropoulos, Joseph Cheong and Anson Tsang all ran deep, just missing out on the business end of the tournament.

WSOP $1,500 Limit Holdem Championship Final Table Results: 

Place 

Player 

Country 

Prize 

1st

Ajay Chabra 

United States 

$77,475 

2nd 

Carter Swidler 

Canada 

$65,737 

3rd

Apti Dzhabrailov 

Russia 

$48,296 

4th 

Kosei Ichinose 

Japan 

$35,483 

5th 

Mike Watson 

Canada 

$26,069 

6th 

Dzmitry Yasiukevich 

Ukraine 

$19,153 

7th

Kevin Liu 

Luxembourg 

$14,071 

8th

Rich Dixon 

United States 

$10,338 

9th

Shannon Shorr 

United States 

$7,595