ShareJans Arends has scooped the WSOP $100k title, picking up a gold bracelet and $2,576,729 after seeing off Cary Katz heads-up...
Arends, a prolific highstakes online MTT player under the nickname “Graftekkel”, was among 93 entries to the nosebleed buy-in event #29.
That produced a prizepool of $8,997,590 to be shared out among the top 14 players with a min. cash worth a whopping $171,034 and three 7-figure paydays up top for the podium spots.
Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu were in the field, with the 2021 and 2022 Main Event winners, Koray Aldemir and Espen Jorstad respectively, looking to turn their big bankrolls into SHR success.
The bubble was ended when Chidwick’s big slick lost out to Ren Lin’s pocket 10s and then short-stacked Jonathan Jaffe decided to follow Arends’ all-in, receiving the bad news...
Jonathan Jaffe: A♦ Q♦
Jans Arends: A♠ K♦
Flop: 10♦ 5♦ 6♣
Turn: A♥
River: J♣
In the money with $171,034 locked up, the next order of play was to set the final table, with David Peters, Kristen Foxen and Punnat Punsri all missing out, as did Bonomo on the bubble.
The six remaining came back for day three, a stacked table with Arends and Catz joined by Adrian Mateos, Chance Kornuth, Jeremy Ausmus and Biao Ding.
China’s Ding fell first, a double-blow from Kornuth ending his hopes, with Ausmus following soon after at the hands of Mateos, while Kornuth fell to Katz...
Kornuth: A♠ 4♠
Katz: A♣ J♦
Flop: 6♦ 5♣ 2♦
Turn: 9♦
River: 8♦
Now guaranteed$1million+, Arends helped his cause with a monster pot against Mateos, full house against straight that left Mateos on fumes
“After the hand against Adrian, I was like, ‘OK, Adrian is short, Cary Katz has like 25, 30 bigs (blinds) and he's not going to want to play any hands,’ this is a dream spot to finish it off,” Arends explained afterwards, adding: “At that point, I really started to believe it.”
Despite doubling Katz up, a limp trap from the button with big slick got the PokerGO founder to shove and it was all over...
Final results
| 1 | Jans Arends | $2,576,729 |
| 2 | Cary Katz | $1,592,539 |
| 3 | Adrian Mateos | $1,142,147 |
| 4 | Chance Kornuth | $833,854 |
| 5 | Jeremy Ausmus | $619,919 |
| 6 | Biao Ding | $469,464 |
“It's completely different live,” Arends – who won his first bracelet online last year – told reporters afterwards. “Live is more pressure, there's people around, there's cameras, live-streamed final table. There's added pressure. The first one was just an online tourney and basically, all that people saw in the end was who won. So, this is very different. Way more special, I would say.”
