Cynn Takes Home $8.8 Million First Place Prize

Published on July 15th, 2018 11:45 am EST

John Cynn outlasted Tony Miles in a marathon heads-up battle to take down the World Series of Poker main event earlier this morning. In addition to the coveted main event bracelet, Cynn will be taking home a payday of $8.8 million, while Miles will take home an even $5 million for his second place finish.

There was nothing easy about Cynn's victory. To start, Cynn had to navigate through the second largest World Series of Poker main event field in tournament history, as a total of 7,874 players turned out for the event.

The heads-up battle between Cynn and Miles pushed both players to the limit, as it took over 10 hours to finish the heads-up battle. The event would finish at roughly 5 am local time, pushing both of the players, as well as staff, media and supporters of the two players, to the absolute limit.

The final hand of the tournament would come when Miles decided to push the rest of his chips into the middle with the board reading Kh-Kd-5h-8d. After a bit of thought, Cynn called holding Kc-Jc for trips. Miles, on the other hand, held Qc-8h and was drawing dead in the hand.

The final table would last a total of 442 hands, with many of those taking place during the heads-up battle.

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Let's take a look at how the final table finished out:

1st - John Cynn, $8,800,000
2nd - Tony Miles, $5,000,000
3rd - Michael Dyer, $3,750,000
4th - Nicolas Manion, $2,825,000
5th - Joe Cada, $2,150,000
6th - Aram Zobian, $1,800,000
7th - Alex Lynskey, $1,500,000
8th - Artem Metalidi, $1,250,000
9th - Antoine Labat, $1,000,000

Joe Cada was unable to become a multiple World Series of Poker main event bracelet winner, though he did finish a very respectable 5th place for $2.15 million.

All in all, Cynn and Miles represented themselves and the game of poker very well in this event.

On top of that, the game of poker itself is obviously still very healthy, as the main event field was the second largest in history. With more states likely to welcome online gambling in the near future, I wouldn't be surprised if the tournament topped the 2006 record sometime over the next couple of years.

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Filed Under: The World Series of Poker