WSOP 2016: Ben Keeline Wins Colossus II for $1M

The 21,613 competitors who entered the 2016 WSOP Colossus II may have been 761 players down on last year’s inaugural event, but this year’s winner still walked away with almost double the $638,880 that Lance Garcia walked away with in 2015. That’s because of the new top-heavy structure introduced following numerous complaints by pros last year, which can be neatly summarized by the tweet previously posted by Eugene Katchalov which stated:
“Over 22k entries creating a prize pool of over $11Mil and 1st prize is only $630k?? Don’t think I’ve ever seen 5% for 1st #colossus #wsop”
As a result, Ben Keeline has now become the first champion to benefit from the new arrangement, and after four days of gruelling action the Illinois pro collected a cool $1 million for his hard-fought efforts. It’s not just about the money, though, and following an impressive victory which pushes his live career earnings to $1,574,323 Keeline explained:
“I can’t even think about what this means, not just the money, but the gold bracelet.. Sure, I thought it could happen and I thought I could win if I played well, but to have it go the way it went, well – that’s more than I express how I feel right now. It’s going to take some time for this to all sink in.”
The $565 buy-in tournament reached its climax following a heads-up encounter between Ben Keeline and his Czech Republic opponent Jiri Horak. The chip lead swung several times during the extended battle, with the deciding hand eventually played after Keeline moved all-in preflop holding Jc-Js, and was called by Horak with Ad-9c. While the 9s-7h-3s-6s-As board which ensued made Horak two pair, Keeline trumped his opponent with an ace-high spade flush, which was good enough to secure him the win.
Final Table Results:
1: Ben Keeline – $1,000,000
2: Jiri Horak – $618,000
3: Farhad Davoudzadeh – $462,749
4: Richard Carr – $348,462
5: Marek Ohnisko – $263,962
6: Christopher Renaudette – $201,151
7: Alex Benjamen – $154,208
8: Jonathan Borenstein – $118,937
9: Xiu Deng – $92,291