Galen Hall Wins 2018 World Series of Poker $888 Crazy Eights Event

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The 2018 World Series of Poker $888 buy-in ‘crazy eights’ no-limit hold’em event attracted a gigantic field of 8,598 total entries. The impressive turnout built a prize pool of $6,871,521. The largest chunk of that money was awarded to eventual champion Galen Hall, who took home his first WSOP gold bracelet and the $888,888 top prize after surviving four days of intense poker action. The 33-year-old hedge fund manager and part-time poker pro also earned 480 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event.

This was the second largest score of Hall’s career behind the $2.3 million he earned as the winner of the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event. He now has more than $5.1 million in lifetime live tournament earnings.

Hall came into the final table as one of the shorter stacks. After the elimination of Philip Tom in eighth place ($90,888) he was the second shortest stack, with just 18 big blinds. Hall won a flip with AQ against Jeremiah Miesen’s pocket tens, leaving him short. Miesen hit the rail in sixth place not too long after, earning $153,888. Hall continued his rise up the leaderboard by knocking out Alex Kuzmin in fifth place ($201,888) and bracelet winner Andrey Zaichenko in fourth place ($266,888).

With that Hall took the lead into three-handed play. Play was halted for the night late on Tuesday, July 3, with the remaining players agreeing to take the following day off so that they might play day 1C of the main event. In the end Hall won a couple of key preflop races in order to seal the deal. He first called Niels Herregodts’ four-bet all-in with the AK and won against Herregodts’ 44 by spiking a king on the flop. The Bulgarian earned $355,888 as the third-place finisher.

Not long after that Hall called Eduards Kudrjavcevs shoved from the button with the 99 and found himself up against J10. The board came down 8657K and Hall’s pair held up to earn him the pot and the title. Kudrjavcevs took home $476,888 as the runner-up.

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

For more coverage from the summer series, visit the 2018 WSOP landing page complete with a full schedule, news, player interviews and event recaps.

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