John Cynn crowned WSOP Main Event Champion

After a marathon heads-up battle lasting long into the night, the Main Event is now over and the poker world has a new champion. Never before has a WSOP Main Event taken so many hands to be decided, and after this gruelling test, it is John Cynn who now joins an elite club of poker world champions.

He takes home an $8,800,000 slice of the $74,015,000 prize pool, having bested the second largest recorded field of 7,874 players, carving his name into the history of our game in the process. Tony Miles takes 2nd place and $5,000,000 in prize money.

Over the three days taken to resolve this final table battle, Cynn never looked favourite for the title until the moment he finally topped the chip counts during heads up play. He had been slowly cruising along through the late stages of the tournament, sitting in the middle of the pack at the end of day 6 before bagging a top 4 stack at the end of days 7,8 and 9. Day 10 however, was his.

Final Hand

After outlasing a field of 7,874 players and 10+ hours of heads up play, John Cynn is your 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion. pic.twitter.com/V8DkKoiLWu

— Poker Central (@PokerCentral) July 15, 2018

Final Table recap

The final table began with Nicolas Manion and Michael Dyer leading the field by some distance, both sitting with close to 110 million, while the nearest challenger, Tony Miles had just under 43 million. Day 9 began with Dyer having seized control at the top with 156 million, with Manion having slipped to 72 million. All the while, John Cynn had been grinding away and creeping up the standings, beginning the ninth day with around 62 million.

By the end of the day he had vaulted up to 128.7 million, good for 2nd place behind the 239 million of Miles, while Michael Dyer’s challenge had crumbled entirely. He was left with just 26 million at the end of the day. Dyer’s elimination early on day 10 brought about a draining heads-up marathon which saw the chiplead swing between both players, before finally, Cynn began extending his lead. With a 3 to 1 chip lead, he finally completed the job when his opponent shoved the turn, only to find Cynn waiting with trip kings.

The big names of the final table, Alex Lynskey and Joe Cada put up a good fight, but Lynskey could not reach day 9, falling in 7th place for $1.5 million. Joe Cada was arguably the bigger story, looking to become the first player in the post-boom era to win two Main Event titles. He got his stack in with pocket tens against Ace-King, for a 92 million chip pot, and his story quickly became one of what might have been, as a king hit the flop to end his tournament.

While 2018 may have been memorable for Cada, who picked up his third career bracelet, his 5th place finish here for $2,150,000 will perhaps have felt like a disappointment for the US pro.

For John Cynn, this tournament began with him having a respectable $950,000 or so in live cashes. In that unremarkable number however was an interesting story that could easily have been overlooked. $650,000 of his cashes came by way of an 11th place finish in the WSOP Main Event in 2016. Two Main Event cashes, and two top 11 finishes is certainly impressive. The same can now be said about his all-time career cashes figure.

The final payouts for this event are as follows:

1st – John Cynn – $8,800,000
2nd – Tony Miles – $5,000,000
3rd – Michael Dyer – $3,750,000
4th – Nicholas Manion – $2,825,000
5th – Joe Cada – $2,150,000
6th – Aram Zobian – $1,800,000
7th – Alexander Lynskey – $1,500,000
8th – Artem Metalidi – $1,250,000
9th – Antoine Labat – $1,000,000

Article by Craig Bradshaw