"Was it a dream?" Andrew Moreno cannot believe his own Wynn Millions victory

Andrew Moreno won the Wynn Millions yesterday, taking home $1,460,106 after cutting a three-way deal with Clayton Maguire (2nd) and Toby Lewis (3rd).

Maguire came into the final table strong. He had the chip lead. Even by the time the game got down to heads up with Moreno, he was in possession of two-thirds of the chips in play.

He put that big stack to use, trying to bully Moreno. But Moreno wasn't having it, he managed to edge his way into a slight lead.

Then the chips went in pre-flop when Moreno picked up A♠Q♠ against Maguire's A♣K♣. It looked bad. Losing the hand would cripple Moreno.

The flop came down K♠Q♦️5♠. This gave Moreno some outs: nine spades and two queens would put him ahead of Maguire's paired king.

The hand reversed on the turn with the Q❤️, giving Moreno trips. Now it was Maguire who was hunting for cards. He needed one of the remaining two kings in the deck or it was all over.

The river was the 8♦️.

“I’m grateful above all else,” said Moreno in his post-game interview. “I think just declaring what I wanted to do was really important to me because I believed in myself and I wanted to hold myself accountable. I’m just so shocked it happened so quickly.”

“Baby rungood”

Though she is usually in the thick of the action herself, poker-pro Kristy Arnett was on social media duty for her partner during his deep run. She manned Moreno’s Instagram account, keeping his fans updated on his progress.

The day after his win, Arnett posted a photo of Moreno sleeping under his oversized check. The caption read: "His first words this morning, 'Was it a dream?'"

The Wynn Twitter team replied: "To be safe, we checked with surveillance.  Confirmed not a dream."

Arnett has been playing a lot less poker herself since she got pregnant. It is hard to keep a fetus safe during a pandemic. However, in a post-game interview, Moreno attributed his win to the unborn child.

"I feel like ‘baby run-good’ is a real thing," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "I’ve been running very well. As soon as she got pregnant, I started running really well. Maybe the universe wants me to take some time off from poker and spend it with my family."

He plans to squeeze in as much poker as he can before that happens though.

"I’ll be playing up until and through the WSOP until my son is born,” Moreno confirmed. “And then I’m taking a nice long break. This is what I will always remember. I’m just happy to have all these people here with me."

At eight month’s pregnant, Arnett might not give him much more time at the felt.

Moreno’s play was sharp. He called a bluff when there were sixteen players left, in a way that led Arnett to tweet: "What. A. Sicko. 16 left and on a pay jump. @Amo4sho made this call on the River for his tournament life."

With play like that, it's no wonder that he won.

Wynn Millions final table results

Featured image source: Twitter