World Series Of Poker -- Calen McNeil Wins $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low

Calen McNeil won his first gold bracelet in the World Series of Poker event no. 20 $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low, which makes him the sixth Canadian to win so far this summer. Along with his bracelet he banked $277,274.

A total of 1,014 players entered in the event creating a hefty prize pool of $1,368,900. It came down to heads up between Can Kim Hua and McNeil, it was clear neither of them were going down without a fight when the game went into an unscheduled fourth day.

The longtime poker pro, Hua, cashed for $171,577 for second place.

McNeil, known as “Big Wheel McNeil” is a restaurant owner from Victoria, British Columbia. He admits to playing drunk poker games in college but didn’t seriously get into poker until around 1994 when he was in the hospital and suffered an accidental overdose, which put him into a coma for five days. After the incident he played a lot of chess to exercise his brain and it was his brother who gave him the idea to play poker.

McNeil described winning his first WSOP gold bracelet as “a dream come true.” He added, “All my friends have one so I had to have one.”

Other notables who made the final table included three other gold bracelet winners: Dao Bac, who finished ninth, John Monnette who finished seventh and Hieu Ma who finished fifth.

Take a look at the final table:

For complete coverage of the summer poker festival, check out our WSOP landing page.

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