British high-stakes crusher Stephen Chidwick is back in the winner’s circle on a World Series of Poker stage for the first time in five years after a victory in the $52,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship at WSOP Paradise in The Bahamas.
The champ beat a field of 122 entries and took $1,357,080 from the total prize pool of $6,100,000. It’s his second WSOP bracelet — his first was in the $25,000 PLO High Roller at the 2019 WSOP. It was his second cash of WSOP Paradise after a 14th-place finish in the Triton Million.
“It’s kind of funny that both of my bracelets are in PLO and both of my Triton titles are in Short Deck,” Chidwick told PokerOrg after the win. “I don’t have a major no-limit title.”
Chidwick has plenty of other titles, however, and a pile of career earnings that is now over $63 million, according to The Hendon Mob. His top score of all time is still a fourth-place finish for just over $5.3 million American dollars in the £1,050,000 Triton Million for Charity at the 2019 Triton stop in London, and this is Chidwick's fifth tournament win of the year — the last coming in a €10,500 NLH event at EPT Monte Carlo.
Chidwick closing in on Bonomo
His career total is still good for third place on the all-time money list behind Bryn Kenney and Justin Bonomo, and Chidwick is now just over $1 million behind the latter. A deep run in the Super Main Event — should Chidwick decide to jump in — could vault him into second place.
The #1 spot is “something I used to think about a lot,” said Chidwick. “It’s something that I worked on being more indifferent to and just focusing on each hand, each moment, and letting that stuff take care of itself.”
It has certainly taken care of itself with a victory over Wang Yang in heads-up play — something that seemed a bit far-fetched when the day started. Chidwick entered the final day as a co-short stack with Benny Glaser.
Tollerene cedes ground
The day started with Ben Tollerene extending his big chip lead over the rest of the table. Meanwhile, Chidwick picked up the first double of the day. After Pascal Lefrancois and Glaser bowed out in seventh and sixth, respectively, Chidwick doubled again — this time through Tollerene. It was a sequence of events that spelled doom for the chip leader, and his advantage was soon gone after he lost two big pots to Wang and surrendered another double to Chidwick.
The escalating blinds and consolidating stacks led to the rapid-fire eliminations of Dylan Weisman, Nick Schulman, and finally Tollerene, who fell quickly in three-handed action to set the table for heads-up play.
Wang had the 2-to-1 advantage in the final stage, but Chidwick found another double right away with running queens to take a small chip lead. After a bit more jockeying with even stacks, Chidwick broke it open with a gustsy call to open up an insurmountable chip lead. Wang, who fought back briefly with two double-ups, finally succumbed to Chidwick when he ran into pocket aces.
WSOP Paradise will now turn its focus squarely on the Super Main Event, which will offer its third of four opening flights on Saturday. Players are hoping for a spot in Monday’s Day 2, where they will compete to join the players from previous online flights on Day 3. Monday will also bring the start of the final major event of the series, the GGMillion$ Championship with a $10,400 buy-in and a $5 million guarantee.
Photos courtesy of WSOP/Tim Ash
