Athanasios Polychronopoulos Wins 2nd WSOP Bracelet In Las Vegas

Athanasios Polychronopoulos has won WSOP $1,500 NL (Event #17), after defeating a field of 2,105 players over three days to capture a gold bracelet, as well as the $518,755 first place prize.
The player with the longest name in poker hails from New York, and only cashed in at his first live tournament in 2010. A year later, Polychronopoulos then went on to capture his first WSOP bracelet at the 2011 WSOP $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event for $650,223, and now with his latest victory at the Rio in Las Vegas takes his career earnings to $1,529,318.
The WSOP $1,500 NL event produced one of the biggest fields of the tournament series so far to create a prize pool worth $2,841,750. Amongst the notable names coming away with a reward for their efforts was Stephen O’Dwyer in 134th ($3,537), David Sklansky in 132nd ($3,537), David Peters in 62nd ($7,218), Vanessa Selbst in 60th ($7,218), Ian Frazer in 19th ($15,317), and Barry Greenstein in 11th ($29,980).
After the final table got underway, Polychronopoulos (K-K) then proceeded to eliminate Thomas Nicotera (A-6) in 9th ($38,178), before winning an A-J versus A-Q encounter against Joe Cada to knock-out the former WSOP Main Event winner in 4th for $161,642. Continuing his steamroll, Polychronopoulos did likewise to Everett Carlton in 3rd ($224,455), before taking a slim lead against Manuel Mutke into the heads-up phase of the competition.
Suprisingly, the final battle subsequently lasted just three hands with Polychronopoulos (Q-J) and Mutke (A-J) all-in preflop. The board then smiled on the New Yorker as the cards rolled out J-5-3-2-Q to hand him his second career bracelet.
The final table payouts were as follows:
1 Athanasios Polychronopoulos $518,755
2 Manuel Mutke      $322,908
3 Everett Carlton $224,455
4 Joe Cada      $161,642
5 Samuel Taylor      $118,145
6 Michael Kurth      $87,398
7 Joe Ward      $65,502
8 David Baker      $49,716
9 Thomas Nicotera $38,178