High stakes online poker professional Jens “Jeans89” Kyllönen (26) showed once again that he is hard to beat at Pot Limit Omaha – live or online – when he was victorious in the World Series of Poker $25,000 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha championship event over the weekend.
The blonde Finnish player bested a talented field of 184 to claim the first prize of $1,127,035 and his first WSOP bracelet, burnishing a cv that already boasts $5 million in online career earnings.
It was not his first million-dollar win at poker – five years ago he scored a million dollars in a day playing online – but he still described his latest victory as a major rush that he will long remember.
The heads up table included some formidable and experienced professionals like Dan Smith, Tommy Le, Robert Mizrachi, Ryan D’Angelo and Sean Winter, which ensured that it was a lengthy and hard-fought affair.
Ultimately it was Kyllönen who faced veteran live tourney player Tommy Le in the heads up following the elimination of the equally talented Dan Smith at third for $487,361 after a three-handed struggle in which the lead changed numerous times.
That became the norm for the next two hours as Le and Kyllönen battled for supremacy in a thrilling display of skill and discipline, urged on by a noisy railbird crowd rooting for their players.
The Finnish player finally managed to retain the lead long enough to force Le out of the game with a second placing prize of $696,558, adding another bank account-boosting Pot Limit Omaha reward to Le’s phenomenal run this series, which has seen him score $46,452 and $376,667 in earlier events.
Interestingly, at the end of his epic win Saturday, the Finnish online ace told reporters that he regularly encountered tougher opposition in PLO games online, which he found more challenging than the live environment.
Watch out for the Finn – he plans to play in this year’s main event.
Other final table cashes in Kyllönen’s latest triumph included:
Ryan D’Angelo $347,641
Veselin Karakitukov $252,909
Dmitry Savelyev $187,724
Ludovic Geilich $142,227
Sean Winter $110,035
In related news, the introduction of a $1,000 buy-in Tag-Team No-Limit Hold’em event on the World Series of Poker program this year – the first in 34 years – has proved a success, with 863 two-man teams entering.
Doug Polk and Ryan Fee claimed the victory, $153,358 in main prize money and a bracelet a-piece for their win.