Making a World Series of Poker final table and being inches away from a WSOP Gold Bracelet is a dream many poker players share but realized by few. Zewei Ding found himself in that position today, but his dream nearly turned into a nightmare as soon as the final table began.
Just one hand in, Ding faced what seemed like the ultimate cooler, with his pocket kings up against Dirk Schumacher’s pocket aces. However, a miraculous runout allowed Ding to come out on top, and from there, he dominated the final table of Event #14: €1,000 NLH Turbo Freezeout, ultimately defeating Stepan Khachaturyan heads-up to take home the lion’s share of the €150,000 prize pool and his first WSOP gold bracelet.
“It’s really exciting for sure. It takes many years,” Ding shared, noting that his victory was also the first time he had ever cashed at King’s Resort.
| Place | Prize | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zewei Ding | China | €35,351 |
| 2 | Stepan Khachaturyan | Armenia | €22,730 |
| 3 | Gal Naim | Israel | €15,134 |
| 4 | De Han Kim | South Koreea | €10,448 |
| 5 | Pel Nieuwenhuis | Netherlands | €7,489 |
| 6 | Marco Jansen | Germany | €5,581 |
| 7 | John Trast | Sweden | €4,332 |
| 8 | Erik van Hulst | Norway | €3,508 |
| 9 | Maximilian Huber | Austria | €2,969 |
| 10 | Dirk Schumacher | Germany | €2,632 |
Given the fast structure of this event, with 20-minute levels, the action kicked off at a blistering pace from Level 1. It took under seven hours for the field of 152 entrants to be narrowed down to 23 paid spots. Some notable players who joined the field but fell short of the money include Candido Cappiello, Tobias Peters, Alexandre Vuilleumier, and Vivian Saliba.
Marius Schneider and defending champion Bernd Gleissner shared the title of bubble boy, as both players were eliminated at separate tables during hand-for-hand play. Schneider had his pocket jacks cracked by Gal Naim’s pocket sevens, while Gleissner’s ace-four suited failed to hold up in a blind-on-blind confrontation against Pascal Pflock’s nine-five. Both Schneider and Gleissner split the min-cash, each taking home €1,142, while the 22 remaining players were guaranteed at least €2,284.
Rapid-fire eliminations followed the bursting of the money bubble, and it took about an hour to reach the unofficial ten-handed final table. Among those who made the money but fell short of the final table were Or Nezer (19th), Globetrotting Poker founder Maureen Bloechlinger (15th), and Pascal Pflock (11th). Pflock narrowly missed his second final table of the series, having previously reached the final table in Event #5: €550 NLHE Colossus, where he finished in seventh place for €34,650.
Stack sizes were fairly even at the start of the final table, with Marco Jansen holding the chip lead and several players close behind him. Dirk Schumacher became the first player to fall at the final table after a brutal beat, flopping top set with pocket aces, only to have Ding turn a straight with pocket kings in a pivotal hand that saw him overtake Jansen for the chip lead. Shortly afterwards, Ding clashed with Jansen in a battle of big stacks. Ding got Jansen to fold the turn after committing half his stack to extend his lead over the rest of the field while Jansen fell to the middle of the pack.
Following Schumacher’s elimination, the pace of play slowed considerably, given the presence of a few short stacks and the increasing pay jumps. It took nearly an hour before Ding reduced the field by scoring a double knockout to send Maximilian Huber and Erik van Hulst to the rail in ninth and eighth place respectively.
Jansen never recovered from his previous clash with Ding and was the next to fall in sixth place after being whittled down to less than one big blind. He was followed out the door by Pel Nieuwenhuis in fifth and De Han Kim in fourth. Kim’s exit marked his second final table appearance of the series, improving on his ninth-place finish in Event #11: €1,100 NLH Turbo Bounty Hunter just a few days earlier.
Naim came into the final table as one of the short stacks but did an excellent job picking his spots and climbing up the pay ladder. His deep run came to an end in third place after running his ace-deuce into Ding’s ace-king and failing to improve. Following that hand, Ding held roughly a 7:1 chip lead over Khachaturyan going into heads-up play.
The heads-up duel between Ding and Khachaturyan lasted only five hands. The two traded a few small pots before Khachaturyan pushed his chips in at the wrong time, running into Ding’s pocket kings while holding five-three offsuit. Ding ended the final table the same way he had started it—winning with pocket kings at showdown to take the final pot of the night, the WSOP gold bracelet and the top prize of €35,351.
