Jason Simon Wins Gladiators Of Poker Event At World Series Of Poker

Jason Simon – Photo Credit: World Series of Poker / Hayley Hochstetler.

Jason Simon pulled off an epic feat on June 12 at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nevada when he topped the huge field in the Gladiators of Poker tournament to win the top prize worth $499,852 along with his first gold bracelet. The $300 buy-in no-limit hold’em event was the second-largest live tournament in poker history thanks to a gigantic turnout of 23,088 entries. Only the WSOP Big 50 event back in 2019 was larger with 28,731 entries.

Simon’s poker nickname is “The Chiseler” and that proved to be fitting in the record field. This was the largest cash of his career, and Simon is now close to $800,000 in tournament earnings. This was the ninth win on his poker resume, and he adds the gold bracelet to a trophy case that also holds a gold ring he won at a WSOP Circuit event back in 2020 at the Ameristar St. Charles near St. Louis.

“It was awesome, having your friends here with you, cheering for you in the all-ins, it definitely helps,” said the O’Fallon, Missouri resident to reporters after the win. He continued, “Your tournament life is so valuable, you have to stay alive no matter what. When I fell down to 14 million, I never really panicked, found a double up and went up from there.” Simon ended his winner’s interview with this, “I primarily play mixed games, mostly play no-limit hold’em only for tournaments, but maybe I’ll play some more tournaments after this.”

There were four starting flights in the tournament before the prize pool was set at $5,679,648. The top 3,173 players all took home at least $480 in prize money. Day 2 saw the remaining 827 players return, and by the end of the night, just 14 remained. Notables that made a deep run on the penultimate day of play included Casey Carroll (29th), TK Miles (39th), Melanie Weisner (62nd), DJ Buckley (68th), and Daniel Negreanu (72nd).

It took two hours for the final 14 to play down to the final table to start the last day of play, and Simon was in the middle of the chip-stack pack at that time. Simon got on the board with a knockout of Johnson Chatterley in seventh place to keep pace with the field, and he followed that up by taking out Kfir Nahum in fifth place. That put Simon third in chips among the final four players.

That was when Simon made his move to the top by taking out Wade Wallace in fourth place, and Wesley Cannon in third place to take a close to 4:1 chip advantage into the heads-up final. That final match took just one all-in hand to decide a champion. Simon put the pressure on Eric Trexler by moving all in, and Trexler called off the last of his chips with J10. Simon was ahead with K8, and the hand held on a board dealt 54363. Trexler was eliminated in second place, and he took home $301,097 for outlasting well over 23,000 opponents to claim what was his largest tournament score.

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

Visit the Card Player 2023 World Series of Poker page for schedules, news, interviews, and the latest event results.

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