Online and live tournament poker pro Andrew “Lucky Chewy” Lichtenberger (28) from New York has the respect of most of his peers and has been successful in many tough competitions since 2009, but the monkey on his back has always been his inability to secure a World Series of Poker bracelet despite cashing on 33 occasions and making it to five final tables.
That ended this weekend when he convincingly won the 52nd event on the WSOP schedule, the $3,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em contest to add another $569,158 to his impressive $7.5 million in career earnings generated by success in World Poker Tour, Worlds Series of Poker, Epic Poker League and WSOP Circuit competitions.
Lichtenberger attributes much of his success to hard work, mental focus and a healthy lifestyle – he even wrote a book about that titled “Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger’s Yoga of Poker.”
“Nutrition, a healthy lifestyle, and a positive attitude were all integral factors in my victory today,” Lichtenberger said after besting a star-studded field of 1,125 players to claim that long-awaited WSOP winner’s bracelet.
The event ran to an extra day…a now common experience in this year’s WSOP…which was needed to decide the winner in the heads up with Aussie pro Craig Blight.
Lichtenberger held a 3 to 1 lead as the heads up started, and he was able to hold on to that despite a brief rally by the Aussie that did not manage to stop the increasingly confident New Yorker from pushing on to a convincing win.
Blight’s second placing gave him a very nice pay day of $351,721.
Other final table cashes included:
Chris Johnson $249,336
Mac Sohrabi $179,015
Linglin Zeng $130,191
Erhan Iscan $95,925
Thomas Miller $71,617
Roger Teska $54,190
Daniel Wagner $41,563