Sergio Aido Wins World Series of Poker $50,000 Buy-In Event For $2 Million

The largest top prize paid out so far at the 2024 World Series of Poker is the $2,026,506 earned by Spanish poker pro Sergio Aido. The high-stakes tournament regular bested a sizable turnout of 177 entries in the $50,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em eight-max event to secure the multi-million-dollar score and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

Aido now has nearly $21.4 million in total lifetime tournament earnings to his name, good for second place on Spain’s all-time money list. He still has quite a long way to go to try to catch up to his home country’s all-time leader, Adrian Mateos, who has nearly $48.6 million in career scores. Mateos added to that haul in this very event, in fact, finishing fourth for $681,554.

This was Aido’s first win and seventh final-table finish of 2024. He earned 1,326 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion, enough to see him surge up the rankings and into fourth place in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker.

He also locked up 800 PokerGO Tour points, climbing to seventh in the season-long standings for that high-stakes-centric points race.

The $8,451,750 prize pool for this event was ultimately paid out between the top 27 finishers, with a min-cash being worth $101,724. Big names like Mikita Badziakouski (19th), Chris Brewer (18th), Artur Martirosian (12th), Martin Kabrhel (10th), and Leon Sturm (9th) all made deep runs.

Aido knocked out Sturm to set the official final table of eight. Mixed martial arts ring announcer Bruce Buffer made a career-best poker showing in this event, placing eighth for $212,423 after running A-K into the pocket kings of Jonathan Jaffe. He now has more than $551,000 in career earnings.

Aido knocked out Johannes Straver (7th – $276,987) and Jaffe (6th – $367,577) to further grow his stack heading into short-handed play. Swedish online legend Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom kept pace by knocking out two-time bracelet winner Jesse Lonis (5th – $496,293).

Mateos’ run in this event was ended by Aido, whose K-7 suited held against the Q-8 suited of Mateos. Aido made trips to send his countryman to the rail and take a big lead into three-handed action.

Blom slid to the bottom of the counts as the night wore on, losing an all-in confrontation with three-time bracelet winner Chance Kornuth to fall below ten big blinds. He rebuilt a bit from there, but eventually ran into a cooler situation with top and bottom pair on the flop against top and middle pair for Kornuth. All the chips went in at that point, and Kornuth held to eliminate Blom in third place ($951,727). This was the third-largest tournament score yet for the Swede.

Aido held a narrow lead over Kornuth when heads-up play began. Kornuth edged ahead briefly, but Aido soon regained control and extended his advantage in time for the final hand of the tournament.

Kornuth min-raised to 1,000,000 from the button with J9 and Aido called with 96 from the big blind. The flop came down 966 and Aido checked his trips. Kornuth bet 700,000 and called when Aido check-raised to 2,600,000. The 2 turn gave Kornuth a flush draw to go with his nines and sixes. Aido bet 5,800,000 and Kornuth called. The 3 completed the board and Aido moved all-in. Kornuth took a few minutes in the tank before making the call, only to be shown a flopped full house by his opponent.

Kornuth earned $1,351,000 as the runner-up, which is his new highest tournament payday. He now has nearly $18.2 million in recorded earnings.

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

Visit the Card Player 2024 World Series of Poker page for schedules, news, interviews, and the latest event results. WSOP coverage sponsored by Global Poker.

Photo credits: WSOP / Rachel Kay Winter, PokerGO / Enrique Malfavon.

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