The event attracted 5,252 entries to create a prize pool of $4,150,761, with the majority of that money awarded to the players at the final table. There were three starting flights and players made the money by the end of the first day. There were 237 players who made it to Day 2 and six of them returned for the final day looking for gold, but only Moses was able to bring the bracelet home.
Event #70: $888 Crazy Eights Final Table Results
Place
Player
Country
Prize (USD)
1
David Moses
United States
$888,888
2
Sejin Park
South Korea
$400,888
3
Timo Kamphues
Germany
$200,888
4
Paul Fehlig
United States
$134,888
5
Leonid Yanovski
Israel
$102,888
6
Georgios Sotiropoulos
Greece
$79,888
7
Joseph Liberta
United States
$61,888
8
Farhad Davoudzadeh
United States
$47,888
Winner's Reaction
Moses mentioned he was laid off from work last year and started playing poker regularly since then, which has now culminated in a massive score and his first bracelet.
“Everybody wants a bracelet. They asked me if I wanted a picture of it when we got heads-up and I said I’ll get a picture when I win. Just being honest, the money mattered a lot more. It’s a huge amount of money for an eight-hundred dollar tournament, it’s life-changing money. I’ve got two amazing backers. The series has been kind of rough, but it’s definitely not rough anymore."
Many in the poker community may have seen Moses around poker rooms wearing a Grinch hat or using his Grinch card protector named "Leroy."
“A few years ago, I was one of like five or six people who started streaming on Global Poker. I had a Grinch avatar at some point… and because I streamed and ranted, I became known as ‘The Global Grinch’. So I bought this hat… and as a joke, I wore it to a $400 tournament in Cherokee at the circuit stop, and not only did people come up and say ‘I love the hat’ just in general but like eight or nine people over the course of a weekend came up and said, ‘Are you ‘rUeTaMa’ from Global Poker?’ or ‘Are you that Global Grinch guy?’... so I liked the attention and it just became a schtick.”
“So I started wearing the hat and I was in a Gamestop with my son one day and I was like, ‘I want that Grinch’ so I bought it and started taking it to the tables and using it as a card protector. I have a name-game thing that I do where I get everybody’s name at the table... to make the game more social. Since I’m getting everybody’s name and repeating it over and over, one day I just said, ‘And this is Leroy’ out of nowhere. So he got a name, and now he’s got his own little schtick. I think I’m gonna make him a Twitter account and an Instagram. Leroy’s cooler than me,” Moses said with a laugh.
Moses had several people on his rail to cheer him on throughout his journey today.
“My friend Manny and my friend Chris O’Neil… I can’t give those two guys enough credit. I’ve roomed with them for the second half of the trip.They have helped my game so much in the past three weeks. I’m actually pretty embarrassed how bad I played five weeks ago before I met Manny and Chris. They think I’m being modest about that but they get a lot of credit for this. It’s insane.”
David Moses & friends.
Final Table Action
On Monday, Lich Bui was the first one to go out at the unofficial final table in ninth when his ladies couldn’t hold against sevens. Farhad Davoudzadeh was the next one gone when his ace-nine got beat by ace-eight when an eight appeared on the turn. Joseph Liberta was the last one gone at the end of the night when he ran a weak ace into Moses' ace-queen.
The six remaining players came back on Tuesday and the action continued at a brisk pace. Three-time bracelet winner Georgios Sotiropoulos fell short of another bracelet after running his stack into a better kicker. Several double-ups occurred before Leonid Yanovski got in his ace-king against the ace-queen of Moses. A queen came in the window and Moses held to send Yanovski to the rail and take the chip lead.
Paul Fehlig was the next one sent home by Park, and three players remained with Moses having the most chips. Eventually, Moses was able to accumulate chips from the other two players to hold a large majority, and Park knocked out Timo Kamphues when his sixes held against ace-four. That set up a heads-up match between Moses and Park with the former starting with a chip lead of almost three times his opponent.
Park got himself a double when a flop gave him straight and also gave Moses top two pair. However, the duo got their chips in preflop shortly after, and Moses had a big advantage holding ace-eight against king-eight. Both players held an eight in the "crazy eights" tournament and as the board ran out blanks and Park failed to improve, Moses was officially the winner of the tournament and celebrated his first bracelet win and huge score with his rail.
Congratulations to David Moses for winning the 2021 WSOP Event #70: $888 Crazy Eights!
This concludes the PokerNews coverage of this event but check out the WSOP Live Reporting Hub to follow all the exciting action here at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino.
