Josef Gulas Jr is the 2021 WSOPE Main Event champion

Jon Pill
Posted on: December 09, 2021 17:15 PST

The 2021 WSOPE Main Event championship went to Josef Gulas Jr today. Gulas took home €1,276,712 (~$1.45 million), after buying in for €250 via satellite.

This was Gulas's second cash at this year's WSOPE, having previously taken 168th in the WSOPE Mini-Main.

Gulas is a Czech pro whose tournament record is somewhat confused by the fact that the Hendon Mob appears to have combined the results of at least two Gulases, Josef.

As a result, the Josef Gulas page lists tournament victory's against his name going back to 2007. In 2007, our Gulas was around 10 years old — a fact that caused some consternation in the commentary booth.

This year's WSOPE Main Event managed to break attendance records. This was the biggest field for a WSOPE Main Event ever (688 players). Same for the prize pool which hit €6,536,000.

The record-setting attendance was all the more impressive as the series had to work around curfews and daily attendance caps set by a national state of emergency. However, the WSOPE was already underway and stuck it out, making plenty of lemonade in the process.

"It's an incredible feeling. I am truly thankful and happy," Gulas told the press after beating the record-setting field. "It was a perfect tournament with a very nice structure in the best casino in Europe. [...] It is something incredible, I would wish for everyone. Everyone should participate and play in such circumstances — to feel the atmosphere of the final table."

New and improved live stream

Many viewers are experiencing poker fatigue after two months of non-stop coverage of WSOP events in Vegas. So, in order to draw eyes to the WSOPE Main Event, Caesars kicked up the commentary a notch with The Muck.

"You won’t want to miss coverage of the WSOP Europe Main Event final table," Maria Ho tweeted. "I’ll be on comms with the usual suspects."

The Muck is a half-time analysis-style segment peppered through the live stream of the event. In The Muck Ali Nejad, Brent Hanks, David Williams, and Daniel Negreanu chatted about the stream dressed in varied combinations of sport coat and pant colors.

If that wasn't enough star power to keep viewers paying attention, the live commentary was delivered by the WSOP's long-running commentary duo Norman Chad and Lon McEachern. They teamed up with Maria Ho, who provided the strategic content while Norm and Lon did their usual schtick.

The extra production value paid off in viewership with 218,000 views on the stream during the event.

That number will continue to rise, as the video remains available for viewing on the WSOP Youtube channel.

2021 WSOPE €10,000 Main Event No Limit Hold'em complete final table results

Position Player Name Nationality Payout
(Euro)
Payout
(approx. U.S. dollar)
1st Josef Gulas Jr. Czech Republic €1,276,712 $1,446,834
2nd Johan Guilbert France €789,031 $894,169
3rd Alexander Tkatschew Germany €558,505 $632,925
4th Athanasios Kidas Greece €401,344 $454823
5th Stanislav Koleno Slovakia €292,862 $331,886
6th Aleksandar Trajkovski Macedonia €217,854 $246,883
7th Thomas Denie Netherlands €163,434 $185,212
8th Ilija Savevski Macedonia €125,052 $141,715

Featured image source: WSOP