Francis Anderson Wins 2024 WSOP $800 Independence Day Celebration ($501,040)

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Jul 06, 2024 4 min read

After over 13 hours of play on Day 2, the novel Event #80: $800 Independence Day Celebration at the 2024 World Series of Poker has come to a close, with Francis Anderson standing at the mountaintop.

After navigating through a field of 4,263 players, Anderson defeated Brent Lee after a brief but intense heads-up battle to bring home the gold bracelet, along with a hefty sum of $501,040.

Event #80: $800 Independence Day Celebration Final Table Results

Winner's Reaction

Although Anderson is no stranger to the tournament grind, according to The Hendon Mob, this breaks his previous career-best score of $449,912 that he received in 2022 for his third-place finish in the WSOP Monster Stack.

“Oh, it’s pretty insane,” Anderson said in his post-win interview, “Like, I’ve won a lot of money in poker, but this is by far my biggest outright victory, not even close. My last one was only $50,000.”

Anderson is originally from Poughkeepsie, NY but has been living in Las Vegas for the past six years as a professional poker player. And as a pro. Yes, money means a lot, but winning is what means the most to a lot of these players, and you could tell it was an emotional moment for Anderson.

“Yeah my opponent (Lee), he was a solid player, but then right away he won a big pot against me and I was down to like 8 big blinds… but I just kept telling myself don’t give up, all you have to do is double up one time and I got this…”

And sure enough, this inner dialogue allowed him to overcome more than a 3:1 chip deficit and turned the tide in his favor, eventually closing out the win.

Day 2 Action

356 players returned to action today for Day 2, but with 30-minute blind levels, the majority of them fell to the wayside early in the day, as less than 100 remained by the first break. Some big names that made Day 2 but failed to make a deep run included John Riordan (97th-$4,780), Kenny Hallaert (126th-$4,150), Wing Po Liu (147th-$4,150), and Ben Yu (268th-$2,840).

Mark Seif managed to make a decent run with a 41st-place finish for $13,350 and Ari Engel also did well with a payout of $16,300 for 35th.

There was a brief lull in the action after the players reached the final three tables, but it was during this time that Anderson had a big moment when he busted Maksim Petrov by flopping a set with pocket tens against the pocket queens of Petrov to send him out in 23rd place. He then used this momentum to guide his way to the final table, where he was second in chips only to Bamshad Azizi.

Final Table

Once the players returned from their dinner break, it was Jaskaran Brar who was first to fall to Anderson in ninth place when his ace-five couldn't hold up to pocket tens.

Then it was Azizi’s turn to score a knockout when his pocket aces felted a short-stacked Regina Vega Sevilha in eighth, much to the disappointment of her zealous Brazillian rail. Then the action was back to Anderson who knocked out fellow pro Martin Zamani when Anderson out-pipped him with pocket tens (once again) to Zamani’s pocket nines and he exited in seventh.

Azizi then scored another crazy knockout when he got it in with pocket sixes against the pocket kings of Tom Cohen, but a six smacked down on the river to eliminate Cohen in brutal fashion. After that, Azizi then doubled up two players back-to-back and eventually hit the rail when he ran nines into Lee’s jacks and failed to improve.

Lee then went on a tear as he knocked out Donnie Barnard in fourth with pocket queens followed quickly by Taylor Williams in third with pocket fives. These three eliminations really set up Lee for his heads-up match with Anderson as he held a 2:1 chip lead. He then proceeded to win a huge pot off of Anderson to further widen the gap, but that’s when Anderson turned on the gas and started to work his magic.

He first scored a double with ace-jack suited against the pocket fives of Lee, and then when Lee moved all in on the river with top pair of queens, and Anderson flicked in the call with pocket kings to score another huge double to put him far in the lead.

Anderson then finished the job when he called Lee’s all-in with pocket fours and was up against queen-deuce suited. No improvements were made to Lee’s hand on the board and he exited as the runner-up, while Anderson ran and embraced his rail as an official bracelet winner.

Well, that’s all we have for tonight as Event #80: $800 Independence Day Celebration has come to a close, but there is always plenty of content from the 2024 WSOP here on PokerNews, so continue to stay tuned!

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