Adrian Buckley Wins 2015 World Series of Poker Millionaire Maker

Imagine if your first ever cash at the World Series of Poker was for $1,277,193 and a gold bracelet.

That dream just became a reality for 27-year-old electrical engineer Adrian Buckley when he topped a gigantic field of 7,275 entries in the 2015 WSOP ‘Millionaire Maker’ $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event. After overcoming the sixth-largest live tournament in poker history Buckley, whose largest prior cash was for $5,546, admitted that he could hardly believe what he had done himself.

“This is one-hundred percent surreal,” Buckley said after the win. “This has been a crazy few days. It was the run of the century.”

In addition to the bracelet and the money Buckley was also awarded 1,320 Card Player Player of the Year points, enough to catapult him into 61st place in the overall POY standings.

It was far from an easy road to this title for the Dacono, CO resident, though. Not only did he have to navigate the humungous field, but he also had to contend with a number of top poker professionals deep in this event. The final table featured four WSOP bracelet winners in Mike Sexton, Erick Lindgren, Justin Pechie and David Miscikowski. Also among the final nine was World Poker Tour champion and high-stakes heads-up sit-n-go specialist Olivier Busquet. Needless to say, Buckley had his work cut out for him.

He came into the final table as one of the shortest stacks, but two players en route to making it heads up with Javier Zarco, who held the chip lead at the beginning of nine-handed play. The two battled it out for more than 90 hands. By the time the final hand arose Buckley held just over a 2-to-1 chip advantage.

On that final hand Buckley opened to 2,000,000 from the button and Zarco moved all in for 17,000,000 total. Buckley made the call with the 1010, which had Zarco’s 66 in big trouble.

The board ran out KJ3K2 to secure the pot and the title for Buckley. Zarco was sent to the rail as the runner up, earning $791,690 for his impressive finish.

While Buckley is now a millionaire thanks to the WSOP, he says he has no plans of quitting his job as an electrical engineer for defense contractor Lockheed-Martin.

“I came here and planned to play ten events, never dreaming that I’d win this one," said Buckley. "Now, I will definitely play the Main Event. But after this, it’s back to work for me.”

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at this final table:

For more coverage from the summer series, visit the 2015 WSOP landing page complete with a full schedule, news, player interviews and event recaps.

Winner photo and quotes courtesy of WSOP.

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