Daniel Weinman Wins the WSOP 2023 Main Event

World Poker Champion of 2023

Ten game days of the main poker tournament of the year have come to an end. For the first time since 2018, the winner was a US citizen.

The poker professional from Atlanta, Daniel Weinman, took first place in the Main Event of the WSOP 2023, earning $12,100,000.

Such a payout has become a record in the history of the tournament. The organizers have distributed the prize money so that the winner of the Main will receive $100K more than Jamie Gold in 2006.

According to Weinman, he disliked this tournament because of the structure.

Final table

*Before the WSOP ME 2023

6 countries were represented in the WSOP Main Event 2023 final table. They left the most expensive table in their career in the following order.

9th place: Daniel Holzner ($900,000)

The Italian citizen was the most inexperienced and youngest player and entered it with the penultimate stack.

He could not grow his stack in over 40 hands and eventually went all-in preflop with 10BB having AJ on his hands against Stephen Jones' TT. The board did not strengthen Daniel's cards.

Interestingly, on the previous game day, he could have become a final table bubble boy when his opponent got a ten on the turn in the all-in AQ vs. AT, but after Holzner's phrase: "One time!" the dealer showed the queen as the last card.

Daniel is a hereditary farmer specializing in growing apples. He played the ME for the first time after receiving a ticket to the tournament as a gift for his 30th birthday.

8th place: Juan Maceiras ($1,125,000)

Another player from Southern Europe. He started the day with the fifth stack with 57BB. At first, he lost half of the chips to Jones, who caught a set to his pocket jacks, and the Spaniard got a TOP pair with AK.

Finally, Juan lost with K9 against Toby Lewis with AT.

Maceiras has been playing poker for 20 years out of 39, but for the last 4 years, he was a bit apart with cards and unexpectedly made such a successful comeback, almost doubling the prize money for his entire career.

His father is also a famous poker player, though online. He has two Sunday Million wins on his account.

7th place: Toby Lewis ($1,425,000)

The Briton started this finale with the shortest stack (17BB) and a massive gaming experience.

Steve Jones eliminated Lewys. The American beat out Toby with pocket tens. Lewis' KJ didn't improve after the flop.

On Twitter, the viewers noticed that Toby was sitting at the table wearing sunglasses with built-in cameras on the previous game days. The organizers did not react to this in any way.

6th place: Dean Hutchison ($1,850,000)

The second citizen of Great Britain lasted for the final 84 hands.

Clashing against Jachtmann with 55 was decisive for him. To Dean's misfortune, the German had pocket sevens, and not one of the two outs did not come to the board.

Before that, Hutchison played mainly at home. Coming to the World Series this year was very successful for him; besides the Main Event prize, the Briton cashed in 4 more events. For example, he finished ninth in the $1,500 Freezeout among 2,046 participants. 

The first 4 days of the ME, Dean had to play with a cold.

5th place: Ruslan Prydryk ($2,400,000)

The Ukrainian businessman fell far behind his rivals in stack size to the TOP 5, even doubling against Jones: AJ vs. A8.

Then he quickly “gave” 20 and 14 million chips to Walton and Jachtmann, losing the rest of the stack with QT against Daniel Weinman (AJ). 

Prydryk started his live career with the Gary Bowman Cup tournaments in Lviv. Over the past 6 years, this is the first time Ruslan has won prizes in a live tournament. In Vegas, his daughter Irina, who visited the city for the first time, was rooting for him.

4th place: Jan-Peter Jachtmann ($3,000,000)

The last European this finale and its oldest player (55 years old) took the final place, coinciding with his place in the chip count at the beginning of the final table.

Adam Walton took him down. The American was given aces exactly when the German decided to shove with KQ.

Jachtmann is an employee of a marketing agency and the owner of PokerBlatt Magazine. In Vegas, he admitted that he doesn't really like Hold'em; his specialty is Omaha. It was in this format that, in 2012, the German won a bracelet in a $10K event.

3rd place: Adam Walton ($4,000,000)

In the company of two other US citizens, the former chip leader of the finale had the smallest stack, although there were as many as 83 big blinds. The start of the game was successful for him, and he beat Jones in the chip count.

In the decisive hand, he 4-bet push with 88. Unfortunately for Adam, Daniel Weinman had pocket aces, with which he called all-in, won the biggest pot in the tournament's history (427.5M chips), and moved the tournament to the heads-up stage.

Walton is a professional cash player. He finished 42 in the 2021 ME. He has the most unusual education of all the finalists — a kinesiologist teacher (kinesiology is a science that studies human muscle movement).

Heads-up

The one-on-one game started with a two-fold advantage in Weinman over Stephen Jones. And it took only 24 hands for the players to determine the winner.

The next hand decided everything:

• Jones bet with 7M chips with J8 (2.8BB) and received a call from KJ.
• On the J52 flop, Daniel check-raised, and his bet was called again.
• With the 4 on the turn, Stephen decided to go all-in in response to the bet, and it took only 25 seconds for his opponent to make the third call in this hand. The river was an ace.

Stephen Jones, a PRO player, and real estate agent, failed to realize his childhood dream and took only second place in the ME WSOP 2023, earning $6,500,000.

Who is Daniel Weinman?

Daniel is 35 years old and lives in Georgia. He has been playing poker for 16 years, but in recent years the game in his life has faded into the background, giving way to work. Weinman is the founder and programmer of RF Labs (a company that deals with streaming equipment).

Before the Main Event bracelet, he had several major victories on his account:

• In 2017 — 1st place in ME WPT Borgata Winter $892,433.
• In the same year — in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown event for $15K ($381,500).
• In 2015 — WSOP Circuit ring and $280,260
• In 2022 — the first WSOP bracelet and $255,359 $1k PLO tournament.

On the 8th day of the Main Event, Daniel came to the poker press's and fans' attention, winning a triple all-in with JJ against KK and QQ, thanks to a jack in the turn. 

Interesting Facts about the Main Event

The most important achievement of the WSOP Main Event 2023 is a new record for the number of players. A total of 10,043 people registered in the tournament, which is 1,270 (14%) more than the achievement of 2006.

1. Jason Clark won the WSOP Main Event for Life draw of 30 years of entries for the tournament among its participants this year.
2. 100-year-old Eugene Kalden became the oldest participant in the event in the history of the World Series.
3. Andrew Ostapchenko became the first to get into the prizes of the Main Event for seven years in a row.
4. The tournament became the 31st in a row after the rise of the buy-in to $10,000. Experts estimated that this amount, considering inflation, compared to 1972, would be $72,213!
5. Chinese player Xiangchen Gao, finding himself only with 3BB, wrote a letter to all his rivals at the table asking them to fold when he is on the big blind, as the mini-cash will help him not only to enroll in an American university but also to spend an unforgettable honeymoon.
6. Phil Hellmuth (who won his 17th bracelet in this series), as usual, turned his first appearance in the Main Event into a show. This time he was dressed in a trainer's costume, Daniel Cates (Jungleman) in a lion costume with 17 girls accompanying him.