Hedge Fund Manager Gregory Jensen Wins World Series of Poker $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Max

Gregory Jensen is the co-Chief Investment Officer at the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. The 48-year-old helps oversee a fund with assets valued in the hundreds of billions. Needless to say, he’s more than accustomed to making strategic decisions when the stakes are high.

The Ridgefield, Connecticut resident has only played in a few high-stakes poker tournaments in his life, but has an impressive record. He made the final table of the first two super high roller events he ever played in, including finishing sixth in the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 event. Jensen reportedly donated all $286,200 that he earned to victims of the school shooting in Newtown, which is located roughly half an hour from his hometown.

At this year’s World Series of Poker, Jensen took a second run at a high roller title and managed to make it deep in the $100,000 high roller event, earning $571,896 as the fourth-place finisher. He logged another cash at the series, this time in a $50,000 buy-in event, before securing his true breakout live poker performance: emerging victorious in the WSOP $10,000 no-limit hold’em six-max championship event for his first gold bracelet and a $824,649 payout.

“I don’t get to play as much poker as I’d like to,” Jensen told WSOP reporters after coming out on top. "I used to play when I was younger, but I haven’t played in a long time. And I just want to play against the best and see what it’s like. And so it’s just a tremendous experience.”

With this latest victory, Jensen has now accrued nearly $1.8 million in poker tournament earnings despite recording just 11 cashes so far. He also secured 1,500 Card Player Player of the Year points as the six-max champion. With the 360 points he earned with his earlier high roller run, Jensen has now accumulated 1,860 total points, which is good for 76th place in the 2022 POY race presented by Global Poker.

This tournament was one of several that were impacted by the panic that spread across much of the Las Vegas strip after a false alarm about an active shooter in the area. There were massive disruptions to essentially all of the tournaments still running at the WSOP at the time of the incident, which was late on Saturday, July 16. Poker pro Brock Wilson, who was among those affected, publicly questioned afterward if the event should continue.

45 ppl left in the $10k 6max. Multiple of us have injuries and most probably couldn’t sleep as that was one of the most traumatic experiences for many of us I would assume- who really wants to play after all this? Why don’t we ICM chop it and end it? WSOP</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tsarrast?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">tsarrast @BlackoutHS

— Brock Wilson (@BWilson9999) July 17, 2022

Ultimately, the WSOP announced that the event would continue and the remaining players were brought back the following day, with play continuing until the final table of six was set. Plenty of notable players made deep runs in this event without booking a final-table berth, though, including two-time bracelet winner Taylor Paur (43rd), three-time bracelet winner Upeshka De Silva (42nd), five-time bracelet winner Brian Rast (39th), two-time World Poker Tour champion and recent bracelet winner Daniel Weinman (28th), four-time bracelet winner Adrian Mateos (24th), WPT champion and bracelet winner Jared Jaffee (22nd), three-time bracelet winner Davidi Kitai (15th), four-time bracelet winner Anthony Zinno (14th), bracelet winner Romain Lewis (12th), 2019 WSOP Europe main event champion Alexandros Kolonias (10th), bracelet winner Scott Bohlman (8th), and two-time bracelet winner Martin Zamani (7th).

Wilson made it to the final table, but was eliminated in sixth place when his A-J was unable to outrun the K-10 of Jensen. Wilson earned $117,819 for his ninth final-table finish of 2022.

Bracelet winner Barak Wisbrod was the next to hit the rail. He got all-in with pocket nines racing against the K-J suited of Ali Eslami, who won his first bracelet earlier this summer. Eslami flopped a pair of jacks and the nut flush draw to take a major lead. Wisbrod was unable to improve on his pair of nines and was knocked out in fifth place ($164,304).

Despite winning that flop, Eslami was soon the one all-in and at risk. Eslami got all-in on an AK3 flop with 33 for bottom set. Unfortunately for him, Jensen had flopped top set with AA. All the chips got in on the flop, and when the one outer didn’t materialize, Eslami was eliminated in fourth place ($234,396).

Lucas Foster was the short stack heading into three-handed play, with Jensen well out front and Moldovan World Poker Tour champion Pavel Plesuv in second chip position. Foster finished in third place when his A-J was outdrawn by the A-3 of Jensen in a blind-on-blind showdown. Jensen rivered the wheel to send Foster home with $341,902.

Jensen started heads-up play with roughly a 3:1 lead on Plesuv. That lead was all but erased when Plesuv flopped a flush and called a turn shove from Jensen, who had bottom pair and was drawing dead. Jensen remained ahead even after that double-up, and still was in front when the final hand was dealt. Jensen shoved from the button with A9 and Plesuv called all-in with 77. The board came down J928J to give Jensen jacks and nines for the win. Plesuv earned $509,674 as the runner-up finisher. This was the third-largest score of his career, and it increased his lifetime tournament earnings to nearly $5.9 million.

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

Winner photo credit: WSOP / Danny Maxwell.

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