Meet the 2022 WSOP Main Event champion: Espen Jorstad

It's over. It took thirteen days of play if you include all the Day 1 and 2 flights. Nine days' worth of blind levels. Stretched out by the streaming schedule to be sure, but still a respectable half-marathon of tournament poker.

We saw 8,663 players enter and 8,662 bust out of a card game played for $80,782,475 in prizes.

The winner of the bracelet and the $10 million first prize is Espen Jorstad. Jorstad beat Adrian Attenborough heads up to take the title, with Attenborough winning $6 million. That comes to a little under $9 million in Attenborough's homeland of Australia.

Jorstad's response to his victory was charmingly everyman: he called his mom.

"I just told my mom sorry for spoiling this to you, because she was watching the stream, but I won. She was instantly in tears," Jorstad told the press in front of the massed bricks of hundred dollar bills.

"I think she was already crying just watching it. She was so nervous, you know, she was way more nervous than me. She was, like, crying before I made a final table, telling my grandma how far I'd come. I felt a few tears myself. It was very emotional hearing her, hearing how happy she was."

WSOP Main Event champion

For his own part, Jorstad begged a little time to process how he felt.

"I think is going to mean more in a few days when it sinks in," he explained. Right now, it just feels absurd. I was so focused on this match. I came in today to just play poker. I didn't think too much. I tried to not think too much about what was at stake here, what we were playing for."

The final day saw Jorstad, Attenborough, and Michael Duek return. Just the three of them, all of whom had time between sessions to sit down and watch the previous day's live stream. In the process, Jorstad had room to assess his opponents and to gain a respect for their game.

"Attenborough, was the one guy I didn't want to meet heads up," Jorstad said. "He's the one that's been giving me the most trouble the whole tournament. I remember on Day 6 as well, he kept winning every pot against me. I was like, 'Get this guy out of here.' Then I end up heads up with the guy and I was like, 'Oh, not like this.' But I kept making good hands, fortunately. Yeah, the cards just fell in my favor today."

Final table action

The final three players were decided yesterday after John Eames took ran ace-jack into Jorstad's pocket kings and lost his stack. At this point, Jorstad was already beginning to feel like an inevitability.

The cards had swept him into the top five by end of play on Day 6 with the field down to four tables. and from there on out his stack acquired its own gravitational pull.

He came to the final table with the chip lead and held onto it all the way to the bracelet.

Jorsdtad's final table performance along with all thirteen days of the Main Event can be watched on PokerGO. You can also watch the Main Event starting from three-handed play on Youtube for free below.

2022 WSOP $10,000 Main Event complete final table results

Featured image source: PokerGO