On Wednesday night in Las Vegas Canadian accounting student Tommy Nguyen (28) turned a $1,500 buy-in in the World Series of Poker NLHE Monster Stack competition into a $1,037,451 pay day enhanced with his first WSOP winner’s bracelet.
He became this series’ ninth millionaire winner just two months after winning $167,000 at a major poker tournament in Canada.
The Monster Stack event attracted a star-studded field of 6,260 entries – one of the biggest on record – generating a prize pool of $8,451,000.
By the time the final table formed there was not a single previous bracelet holder among the finalists.
Nguyen accounted for two of the final table eliminations before facing off in the heads up against James Carroll and leveraging his 8 to 1 chip advantage into a win despite a late double up by a tenacious opponent.
Carroll’s runner up prize was $640,916, and the rest of the final table cashed:
3rd: Frank Rusnak – $475,212
4th: Chris Chong – $354,903
5th: Daniel Corbett – $266,987
6th: Michael Benko – $202,327
7th: Shyam Srinivasan – $154,463
8th: Harald Sammer – $118,802
9th: Rittie Chuaprasert – $92,061