Florida pro Steven Wolansky (26) emerged victorious Wednesday after a three day battle against 240 other players who anted-up $1,500 apiece to compete in event 36, a NL 2-7 Draw Lowball competition at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
Wolansky scored his first WSOP bracelet and the main prize of $89,483 for the win, which was against players of the calibre of Phil Hellmuth, Brian Rast, Scott Abrams, Ali Eslami, Eli Elezra and Mike Leah.
The 26-year-old Floridian’s triumph was made all the more impressive by the quality of the field and the skill of his experienced heads up opponent, Joseph Cheong, who dismissed most of the final table players to enter the heads up against Wolansky with a slight chip lead.
That all changed when Wolansky took down 11 significant hands in a row, building an unassailable lead that culminated in Cheong’s elimination in second place for $55,309.
The third placing of amateur player and German soccer star Max Kruse in the event was remarkable; he has only just mastered NL 2-7 Draw Lowball recently after a brief crash course from German poker ace George Danzer!
The other final table rewards were:
Max Kruse $36,494
Chris Mecklin $24,908
Orjan Skommo $17,445
Samuel Touil $12,529
Scott Bohlman $9,233
Adam Crawford $6,955