Sports

Here’s The Last Hand Of The 2024 WSOP Main Event As Jonathan Tamayo Wins $10M And Poker Glory (Video)

#World Series of Poker
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actor Jason Alexanders standing in front of World Series of Poker sign

Getty Image / Bryan Steffy


The 2024 World Series of Poker Main Event set a record this year for the largest field in WSOP Main Event history after 10,112 players entered the field but when all of the chips went into the middle on the final hand it was longtime grinder and 4-time WSOP Circuit winner Jonathan Tamayo who won the coveted gold bracelet and etched his name in the annals of poker.

The final table was set on Saturday but players had a day off on Sunday to prepare after a marathon of poker and when the final 9 players showed up for the final table all were guaranteed a pay day of at least a million dollars but first place would pay out $10 million, $6 million to 2nd place, and $4 million to 3rd place.

Entering the WSOP main event final table, Jonathan Tamayo was the third shortest stack with 26.7M in chips (17 big blinds) while Jordan Griff had a commanding chip lead of 143.7M chips (90 BBs). It was those two players who outlasted the other 7 and got heads-up for the coveted Main Event gold bracelet, $10 million, and a place in the poker history books.

After the final 9 played down to 3 players on Day 9 they returned for Day 10 to get all of the chips in the middle. Their heads up battle began when Sweden’s Niklas Astedt went out in 3rd place which assured that an American would win the Main Event title.

Once they got heads-up for the bracelet and $10 million, Jordan Griff had Jonathan Tamayo dominated in chips with 432,500,000 to Tamayo’s 174,500,000. And as far as final table heads-up battles go this one was better than most, with multiple swings in the chip lead after multiple all-ins. It all led to this moment though when Jonathan Tamayo got the best of Griff with the unlikeliest of winning hands:

Winning $10,000,000 cash with an 8-3 offsuit hand is wild. Truly. It’s arguably the third worst starting hand in Hold’em Poker behind the 7-2 and 8-2 offsuit. Yet he spiked two pair on the flop while Griff hit top pair and thought his hand was the strongest.

Tamayo obviously played masterfully at the final table to get where he was but he certainly needed some luck along the way during all-ins:

Tamayo had a solid contingent of railbirds in his corner pulling for him and he actually has some experience with the Main Event final table atmosphere as Jonathan was there for his roommate and close friend Joe McKeehen who was the 2015 Main Event champion. But it was Jonathan’s mom sitting on the rail watching her son win the most coveted gold bracelet in poker who felt the biggest emotions:

With the $10 million cash, this was by far the biggest payday of Jonathan Tamayo’s poker tournament career. It brings his career poker tournament winnings up to $12.3 million and his largest payday outside of this Main Event win was $352,832 for finishing 21st in the 2009 Main Event. Tamayo does have seven cashes for six figures, according to his HendonMob profile.

Tamayo isn’t super active on X, formerly known as Twitter, but he did share this moment from his win after taking down the main event:

Following the final day of tournaments, Scott Seiver locked up the ‘Player of the Year title after edging out Michael Rocco and Jeremy Ausmus. Seiver became just the 7th person in history to win 3 WSOP bracelets in one summer.

And now the World Series of Poker world waits another 10 months until next year’s series comes around. There are, however, a ton of high stakes poker events between then and now including a lot of PokerGo events so make sure to check back here at BroBible for the latest poker news throughout the year!