This year’s event attracted a record-breaking field to the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas, generating a prize pool of $12,159,000.
After more than 28 hours of play over three days, it was Vietnamese rising star Khoi Le Nguyen who triumphed over the 252-entrant field to claim the title.
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As recently as August 2024, Nguyen’s largest live tournament buy-in was just $500. A remarkable combination of sharp decisions, well-timed opportunities, and a bit of good fortune has propelled him rapidly up the stakes. In the process, Nguyen has also soared to the top of his country’s all-time money list, with his victory today crossing him over the $4,000,000 lifetime earnings landmark.
Winner's Reaction
Khoi Le Nguyen
Remarkably, this event was never on the radar for Nguyen until fate intervened and gave him a reason to consider it.
“I feel amazing, obviously. I didn’t even plan to play this event."
"A lot of things happened in the past week. I won a tournament last week, coming back from half a big blind, so I had some money, but still not enough bankroll to play this event.”
I feel amazing, obviously. I didn’t even plan to play this event.
“I had a look at the numbers on the Vietnamese Hendon Mob chart, and I estimate that if this event has enough registration and I happen to win it, then I might be Vietnamese number one, so I thought, let’s just do it, whatever.”
Time to Tell His Parents
When asked what it means to be top of the live earnings charts for his home country, Nguyen gave an unexpected response.
“It’s pretty funny because parents don’t even know I play poker. I don’t think I can hide from that now, maybe they’ll get the news and we will see how they react.”
It’s pretty funny because parents don’t even know I play poker.
Nguyen then humbly reflected on his meteoric rise in the game, expressing disbelief at winning a $50,000 High Roller on his very first attempt.
"I have been very lucky to run deep in mid-stakes events. You just have to be very lucky, and yeah, this year I have been incredibly lucky. I still think I am a bit better than the average player pool, but I know I make a lot of mistakes, horrendous mistakes, but luck helps me out a bit."
"It's crazy to win [the $50,000 high roller]. To compete with the best people and win, but there is still some uncertainty, even though I won, I feel like there is a lot of luck in my win rather than a lot of skill. Compared to the world-class [players], I am still far behind, but it's crazy to win my first $50,000 event and my first bracelet. Still a lot to work on. "
On His Good Luck Charm
Khoi Le Nguyen
Nguyen had a small toy turtle, which he kept on top of his chips throughout the final table. He shared that it was something he bought as a young chess player, deliberately symbolic, reminding him to be slow and steady.
Final Table Action
It took a couple of hours of nine-handed play before the final table saw its first elimination. Sam Soverel, the first to fall as his pocket jacks ran into the pocket queens of Fahredin Mustafov.
Within half an hour of Soverel’s departure, both Matthew Wantman and Martin Zamani had been shown the exit door.
Mustafov was the next to fall, falling victim to eventual champion Nguyen when he got all the chips in versus a dominating ace preflop.
Alexandre Reard sent Vinny Lingham to the rail next, and Jun Obara shortly followed him.
A short-stacked Sergio Aido battled hard to try and gain some ground on his two remaining opponents. Alas, he eventually succumbed to Nguyen in a blind versus blind battle.
Alexandre Reard
Nguyen went into heads-up as the chip leader, but immediately lost his advantage when Reard doubled through him to take the ascendancy.
The two traded blows until one titanic hand saw almost all of the chips pushed in Nguyen's direction.
The players took a five-minute break upon the completion of that hand, and when they returned, Nguyen sat down to a 40-to-1 chip lead.
It seemed the writing was on the wall, and it took only one hand after the restart for Nguyen to wrap it up, taking home $2,686,913 and his first WSOP gold bracelet.
That concludes the PokerNews coverage for this event, but stay tuned for our continuing coverage of the 2025 WSOP.
