Thirty-three-year-old John Cynn has been crowned the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, earning a massive US$8.8 million payday after outlasting a field of 7,873 players over 10 days to claim poker’s most prestigious prize.
But it took a marathon effort on the final day to do so, with his heads-up battle against eventual runner-up Tony Miles lasting an astonishing 10 hours and 199 hands – the longest in WSOP history – before finally coming to an end at 5am Las Vegas time on Sunday morning.
Incredibly, Cynn’s victory comes just two years after he narrowly missed the final table in the 2016 main event, eliminated in 11th before returning this year to go all the way.
“To make 11th is insane on its own,” said Cynn after more than making amends for his narrow 2016 miss. “Then to win, that’s literally something that you dream of, but just never expect to happen. Right now I feel pretty overwhelmed – all the emotions times 10.”
The professional poker player and former logistics analyst, from Illinois, had 12 WSOP cashes to his name before this year’s main event with career live tournament earnings of $944,786.
For runner-up Miles, there was little time for disappointment as he pocketed a tidy US$5 million for his efforts – a significant increase to the US$54,333 in career earnings he came into the main event with. His previous best effort was third place in a local event in Jacksonville for US$18,000.
The 2018 WSOP main event was the second largest in history behind only the 2006 event which attracted a monster field of 8,773 players.
As reported by Inside Asian Gaming last Friday, China’s Yueqi Zhu fell just short of reaching the final table this year with the 55-year-old engineer from Benxi, China eliminated in 10th.
Final table results:
1st: John Cynn (USA) – US$8.8 million
2nd: Tony Miles (USA) – US$5 million
3rd: Michael Dyer (USA) – US$3.75 million
4th: Nic Manion (USA) – US$2.825 million
5th: Joe Cada (USA) – US$2.15 million
6th: Aram Zobian (USA) – US$1.8 million
7th: Alex Lynskey (Australia) – US$1.5 million
8th: Artem Metalidid (Ukraine) – US$1.25 million
9th: Antoine Labat (France) US$1 million
