Event #49: $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em of the ongoing World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2022 concluded with Bulgaria’s Simeon Spasov emerging victorious after defeating Canada’s Mike Watson in heads-up for $527,944. The event, which ran for the first time at the WSOP 2022, was a three-day tourney (23rd June to 25th June) but it took an extra day to crown a champion and concluded on Sunday.
Day 4 Action
The event drew in 1,977 entrants for a $3,519,060 prize pool. Day 3 was scheduled to play down to a winner but an extra day needed to crown a champion. Only 39 started Day 3 and after 33 levels of play, only seven players made it to the fourth and final day of the tournament. Watson came into the final day as the chip leader, but he fell behind early after Spasov found a double with ace-queen.
A short time later, Evan Sandberg open-shoved with Q-10. Daniel Custodio called with A-J. The latter hit a pair of aces on the river to eliminate Sandberg in seventh place. Knocking out the next player from the final table was none other than eventual champion Spasov who eliminated Christopher Frank in sixth place. The latter had pocket nines, which could not hold up against the A-Q of Spasov.
Spasov continued his hot run and eliminated Brazil’s Walter Ripper (fifth) who was pretty aggressive throughout the final two days. Angelou Konstas was doing well by doubling up through the bigger stacks, but his run ended in fourth place when his pocket queens could not hold up against pocket tens of Spasov who spiked a straight on the river, bringing the field down to the final three players.
Three-handed play continued until Daniel Custodio got it all in with Ac 2c and got called by Mike Watson who made a straight with K-Q on the runout of A 10 5 8 J to send him home in third-place.
The heads-up for the title between Watson and Spasov lasted more than an hour. Spasov entered the heads-up play as a chip leader and did not allow his opponent to pull ahead. Finally, it all ended with Watson getting it in with ace-nine and losing to Spasov’s ace-queen on the Js Jc 4c 3d Qc board.
Team India
From Team India, Nathan Rao was the only player who made it Day 3. He started the day among the top 6 stacks but could not make it to the final day, falling out in 20th place for $18,930 – his first WSOP cash and career-best score. His previous best score was the HK$40,500 he had earned from his runner-up finish in Event #3 HK$ 2,700 + 300 No-Limit Hold’em at the 2017 Macau Poker Cup 27.
A total of 3 Indians cashed this event, with Neel Joshi (58th for $9,190 – INR 7.19 Lac) and the former WSOP bracelet winner Abhinav Iyer (156th for $4,355 – INR 3.40 Lac) falling on Day 2 of the event.
Event # 49: Day 4 Payouts (USD)
- Simeon Spasov – $527,944
- Mike Watson – $326,296
- Daniel Custodio – $239,679
- Ioannis Angelous Konstas – $177,761
- Walter Ripper – $133,129
- Christopher Frank – $100,688
- Evan Sandberg – $76,912