On October 4, Daniel Negreanu took the stage in the Brasilia room for a press conference to introduce GGPoker’s newest ambassador. That ambassador was Jason Koon, who was hired by GGPoker not only to promote the brand, but also to help strengthen the online poker room’s security efforts. One day after being announced as the newest GGPoker rep, Koon played his first heads-up match in the 2021 WSOP Event #11 $25,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship. Two days later, he was the tournament’s winner.
The Heads-Up Championship fell short of its 64-player cap with a total of 57 players, creating a prize pool of $721,625. Koon earned the tournament’s biggest payout of $243,981 and surprisingly his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet as well. Despite entering this event with over $2 million in WSOP tournament earnings, Koon had never won a WSOP event until now. He can now officially take his name out of the “best player without a bracelet” conversation.
The path to victory for Jason Koon
Koon defeated Chris Brewer in the Round of 64, Nicolai Morris in the Round of 32, Johannes Becker in the Round of 16, Jake Daniels in the Round of 8, and Henri Puustinen in the Round of 4 to advance to his heads-up final against Gabor Szabo. He was in the most danger in his third-round matchup against Becker. At one point, Becker had climbed to over 1 million chips while Koon was below 200,000. Some timely double-ups got Koon back into the match en route to his eventual win.
The final against Szabo had its share of back-and-forth action, but Koon won the big all-in pots to take control. In one pivotal hand, Koon moved all-in on a four bet with pocket fives, and was snap called by Szabo’s ace-queen of clubs. The flop came jack-ten-four with two clubs to give Szabo a ton of outs, though Koon managed to fade them all as the jack of diamonds fell on the turn and the jack of spades completed the board on the river to give Koon the heads-up lead. He would go on to seal the win when his jack-seven off-suit flopped top pair against the short-stacked Szabo’s king-nine suited and held up to the river.
Jason Koon plans to follow up this victory spending some time off with his family, which just grew by one last month when his wife gave birth to their new son Calum. Koon told PokerNews that he will focus his energy in the WSOP on the remaining high-roller events on the schedule.
Final Eight Payouts
1. Jason Koon: $243,981
2. Gabor Szabo: $150,790
3. Henri Puustinen: $89,787
4. Daniel Zack: $89,787
5. Mikita Badziakouski: $36,280
6. Bin Weng: $36,280
7. Benjamin Reason: $36,280
8. Jake Daniels: $36,280
Featured Image Credit: PokerGO
