WSOP Champ Joe McKeehen Wins 2nd Career Bracelet in Vegas

The 2015 WSOP Main Event champion Joe McKeehen has captured a second career WSOP title, after taking down Event #38: $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship for a $311,817 payday. A total of 120 players entered the tournament to create a prize pool of $1,128,000, and three days of action later McKeehen managed to overcome the field, including his final opponent Jared Talarico heads-up, to give his poker legacy a further boost.
Following a victory which now pushes his live earnings to $13,598,884, placing him at number 24 on poker’s ‘All Time Money List’, the 25 year-old Pennsylvania resident acknowledged the toughness of the competition he faced on his way to winning the event, stating:
“It’s a $10,000 tournament. Here, they’re all going to be really tough at the end. All the good players come out for them.”
Event #38 offered 18 paid money spots, and amongst the big name pros seeing a return on their buy-ins was Robert Mizrachi in 18th ($15,385), Phil Hellmuth in 16th ($15,385), Daniel Negreanu in 13th ($17,894), and Shaun Deeb in 12th ($21,318).
The final table of nine naturally featured a number of top pros, including Terrence Chan (8th), J.C. Tran (5th), and Ben Yu (4th), and following Sorel Mizzi‘s exit in 3rd, it was left to Joe McKeehen and Jared Talarico to battle it out for the title.
McKeehen subsequently started heads-up holding a 3-to-2 chip advantage, and having then ground his opponent down to a single big blind, McKeehen’s 10-5 bested Talarico’s 4-3 on a Q-J-8-5-A board to earn the win. Commenting upon his impressive run, McKeehen explained:
“It’s limit hold’em. You can get really short but if you win some hands you’ll have all the chips. I had a great run.”
Final Table Results:
1: Joseph McKeehen $311,817
2: Jared Talarico $192,717
3: Sorel Mizzi $135,985
4: Ben Yu $97,904
5: J.C. Tran $71,949
6: Robert Campbell $53,995
7: Ray Henson $41,399
8: Terrence Chan $32,443
9: Aaron Sacks $26,000