Czech Player Artur Rudziankov Triumphs at WSOP $1,500 NLHE

A total of 1,763 players took part in WSOP Event #58: $1,500 No Limit Hold’em at the Rio in Las Vegas to create a prize pool of $2,380,050. Four days of intense action later, and it was Artur Rudziankov who would eventually triumph over the field, including Spain’s Mario Garcia heads-up, to claim a career first gold bracelet.
The victory boosted Rudziankov’s live earnings by $395,918 to $906,449, whilst also making him only the second Czech player ever to win a WSOP bracelet. Commenting later on his winning performance during the tournament, the 29-year-old Prague resident stated:
“I was just running hot. You’ve got to run hot to win these tourneys. There’s nothing to it. You just have to get lucky. They just have to fold when you don’t have it and call when you have it. That’s it.”
The $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event featured 265 money spots, and amongst the notable pros securing a profit on their buy-ins was Chance Kornuth (47th), Joe Kuether (42nd), Phil Laak (38th), Larry Little (33rd), Taylor Paur (16th), Asi Moshe (12th), and John Phan (10th).
At the final table, Rudziankov (A-10) eliminated Lee Watkinson (9-6) after calling his short-stack all-in on a ten-high flop, before being dealt A-A and taking out Christian Rudolph (A-K) in 5th place. Rudziankov (K-6) followed up by sending Arman Zolnoorian (10-9) to the rail in 4th, and Timothy Miles in 3rd to set up a final battle against Mario Prats Garcia for the title.
After a few hands, the heads-up action then took an overnight break, but the momentum still stayed with Rudziankov, who on Day 4, after reducing his opponent to just 3bb, polished him off holding a dominated J-4 to Garcia’s A-J.
Final Table Results:
1: Artur Rudziankov $395,918
2: Mario Prats Garcia $244,611
3: Timothy Miles $176,455
4: Arman Zolnoorian $128,645
5: Christian Rudolph $94,799
6: Lee Watkinson $70,618
7: John Esposito Jr. $53,184
8: Martin Kabrhel $40,500
9: Scott Lychwick $31,187