David Peters is now a two-time World Series of Poker champion after taking down the $10,000 buy-in heads-up championship on GGPoker.
The Toledo, Ohio native earned $360,480 for defeating a tough, 128-player field that included some of the top heads-up no-limit hold'em players in the world. Strangely enough, that massive score doesn't even register as one of his biggest poker wins.
Peters has over $33 million in live tournament earnings, ranking him seventh all-time and fifth in US history. Throughout his poker journey, which will one day put him in the Poker Hall of Fame, he's won a Global Poker Index Player of the Year award (2016), two WSOP bracelets, 57 cashes in bracelet events, and over $29 million in cashes from 2015-2019.
Saturday's bracelet win wasn't his biggest or his best accomplishment as a poker pro. But it was impressive considering the competition. Pros such as Darren Elias, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Stephen Chidwick, gave the $10,000 heads-up event a shot.
Never easy winning a WSOP bracelet
Peters defeated six formidable opponents to reach the finals. He beat Johan Guilbert, Sami Kelopuro, Scott Woods, Segi Reixach, Stefan Burakov, and then Alyssa MacDonald — the only woman in the field — in the semifinals.
He met up with Michael Addamo in the finals, perhaps his most difficult test during the entire tournament. Addamo had himself quite an interesting week. On Natural8, a GGPoker Network skin, he lost the largest no-limit hold'em pot in online poker history - $842,000 - to against the internet legend "limitless."
Addamo had pocket kings on a dry board against pocket aces and dumped about $420,000 in the sick hand. He won back a chunk of that loss in the $10,000 Heads-Up Championship on GGPoker, but not all. He earned $223,488 for 2nd place.
In the heads-up finale, he was in full control throughout the majority of the match. It seemed for quite some time like he was destined to win the bracelet, which would have been his third. But poker is a funny game sometimes. If you still have chips, regardless of how far behind you are, you're still in the ballgame.
Peters ran off a run of nine straight winning hands, and then took command of the game. He never relinquished that lead.
Addamo only won back about half of the amount he lost in the aforementioned cash game pot. But he's been a big winner for many years. The Aussie pro has $8.3 million in live tournament winnings, good for third in Australia's history, behind up-and-coming star Kahle Burns and 2005 world champion Joe Hachem.
MacDonald, who lost to Peters in the semifinals, took home $124,160 for her efforts. Michael Zhang earned the same amount for losing to Addamo in the same round.
