Nick Jivkov Wins WSOP $1,500 PLO

Nick Jivkov has won WSOP Event#5: $1,500 PLO, after defeating a field of 639 players to capture a prestigious bracelet, and collect the $189,818 first place prize.
With his latest victory the US player has now taken his live and online earnings to around $560k, and commenting on his progression through the final table, said:
“I was a little bit nervous at first. As I started building up a stack and busting people one by one, I got a lot calmer. Towards the end, when heads-up began, I had a lot of confidence in myself and my game. I felt like this thing was mine.”
As the final table got underway, Nick Jivkov was lying 4th out of nine players, and scored his first elimination after dispatching John Eames in 8th ($18,529), who pushed his short stack with A-6 into the pocket aces of Jivkov.
Next, Daniel Negreanu was hoping to take down a 5th WSOP bracelet and with five players remaining his chances looked good after getting it all-in pre-flop holding A-Q to Nick Jivkov’s A-J. However, his opponent caught up on the river to make a straight sending Negreanu out in 5th ($41,683) and over to the $1500 Omaha 8 event, where he already had a seat in action. As Negreanu tweeted:
“Played a 600k pot with AQ vs AJ flop QT9 turn 2 river King. Out in 5th place and immediately in the $1500 Omaha 8.”
It was a similar story for Tommy Vedes (J-6) who was all-in on a J-10-4 flop and ahead of Jivkov (10-9), who subsequently caught a 9 on the river to send Vedes to the rail in 4th for $55,960. Nick Jivkov’s then won a race holding pocket nines to Jonathan Aguiar’s A-Q, who departed in 3rd ($76,189), thus heralding in the heads-up phase of the tournament against Bryan Pellegrino.
Unable to overcome an initial 3 to 1 chip deficit, Pellegrino eventually got it all in holding J-9 to Jivkov’s pocket tens, who captured the bracelet after the board ran out Q-K-8-7-2.
The final table payouts were as follows:
1 Nick Jivkov       $189,818
2 Bryan Pellegrino $117,199
3 Jonathan Aguiar  $76,189
4 Tommy Vedes       $55,960
5 Daniel Negreanu  $41,683
6 Mike Allis       $31,452
7 Brant Hale       $24,007
8 John Eames       $18,529
9 Keanu Tabali       $14,449