The WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas festival was handed out another trophy on Sunday after the UK’s Ian Bradley topped a field of 77 entries in the $10,500 NLHE 8-Max to earn the $240,625 first-place prize.
It’s the second-largest live score of Bradley’s career and his fourth six-figure cash of 2023. It’s been a breakout year overall for Bradley, who’s racked up roughly $983,000 in cashes and, with this win, soared over $2 million in career live earnings. Former No. 1-ranked online pro and high-stakes reg Joao Simao from Brazil finished as the runner-up and walked with $154,000 as a consolation.
The tournament doesn’t only mark a good start to the festival for WPT in general, but also for a pair of WPT Ambassadors in particular. Brad Owen, just a couple of days removed from celebrating the WPT Premier Meet-Up Game, took a tough beat and finished in third place for $107,800 – the second-largest live cash of his career just behind his fourth-place finish in the WPT Gardens Poker Championship earlier this year.
WPT Global ambassador Ethan ‘Rampage’ Yau also made the final table. The difference is, that Owen only bought into this tournament one time and Rampage was in for four bullets – as he chronicled on Instagram in real time. But the fourth time was a charm for Yau who ultimately turned a profit, finishing in fourth place for $77,000 after, according to the WPT live updates, he was outflopped holding pocket aces.
“We have a long month of poker and maybe things will work out better next time around,” Yau said via Instagram. “Have a lot of poker to play, nice to make an FT and try to make a run at stuff. I need that good old end-of-the-year bailout win again. I’m kinda stuck on the year a little bit in tournaments, I’m a lot stuck. Fourth is a good result.”
Other notable names that made the money include Moldova’s Pavel Plesuv (6th, $44,275), Jim Collopy (7th, $35,035), and Andrew ‘LuckyChewy’ Lichtenberger (8th, $28,875).