This year’s edition of the WSOP has its first female champion. Hollywood screenwriter and producer Carol Fuchs emerged victorious over a field of 357 entries to capture the amount of $127,735, her biggest live tournament cash so far, as well as her first WSOP title.
Fuchs won the $1,500 Dealers Choice, an event which debuted on the last year’s Series. It could be said that the Dealers Choice is probably one of the toughest tournaments, as it requires players to have at least some basic knowledge in a total of 18 poker variations.
It is also interesting to note that some of those are no longer played, or at least not in public cardrooms (Omaha High and Five-Card Draw, for example). So, players are given the opportunity to declare their game of choice in rotation and thus, all variations get to be played throughout the tournament.
Although she described herself as an amateur part-time poker player, Fuchs seemed skillful enough to even deny Robert Mizrachi the chance to defend his title from last year. Furthermore, she became the first female player to capture a gold bracelet this year.
Commenting on her victory, Fuchs said that she hopes women and amateurs would find her victory encouraging.
The female poker player had some tough opponents at the final table. She faced Russian Ilya Krupin in a final heads-up play, which lasted a little less than half an hour. On what turned out to be the tournament’s last hand, Krupin shoved all-in and his opponent called. The Russian tabled [Ac][8d] against Fuchs’ [Ks][Jh]. The flop came [10d][Kh][4d] securing the female player with a pair.
The [3c] came on the turn and the [7s] came on the river to leave the Russian drawing dead. The player was paid the amount of $78,933 for his runner-up finish.
As mentioned above, the tournament attracted a total of 357 entries who created a prize pool of $481,950. The top 36 finishers got their cut of the money, with the payouts starting from $2,838. And here is a little more information about the rest of the players who sat at the final table and how much they won:
Last year’s Dealers Choice champion Robert Mizrachi was denied the chance to claim his 4th WSOP bracelet and finished 3rd to be paid $51,236 of the prize pool. This has been his 5th cash since the beginning of the 2015 WSOP.
Chris Klodnicki took 4th place to capture the amount of $34,252. Yuval Bronshtein scooped $23,428 for finishing 5th in the event.
Viktor Celikovsky collected his first WSOP cash for taking 6th place. The player was paid $16,588. Rounding out the official seven-handed final table, Matt Szymaszek added $12,000 to his bankroll.
