Anthony Zinno Catches One - First WSOP Gold in the Pocket

Anthony Zinno won the $25,000 buy-in High-Roller PLO event after topping tough and competitive field of 175 players. This tournament included the highest entry fee ever for this single variant of poker in the history of World Series of Poker.

The field of 175 entrants generated the prize pool of $4,156,250 which paid 24 top players. Dressed in the suit and tie, Anthony Zinoo has dominated the tournament throughout and was almost unstoppable at the final table. In fact, during the final stages of the event, Zinno was never seriously threatened despite the fact he was faced with a tough opposition.

When heads-up duel began Zinno had a chip advantage and after only a few hands he would overpower Pakinai Lisawad from Thailand. Anthony collected his first gold bracelet and the huge prize for of $1,122,196 to accompany this epic victory.

Lisawad collected $693,553 for his performance and became the biggest cash winner and the highest finishing player at the Series from Thailand.

Zinno now has 12 WSOP cashes and almost $2m in WSOP earnings. The first time he participated in the WSOP event was back in 2008 when he proceed to make ITM in the Main Event.

Zinno has certainly enjoyed success at this year’s series as he has cashed four times before this victory and his each in-the money finish was final table appearance. Including this win, Zinno is now in serious race for the 2015 Player of the Year title, in which he currently ranks second.

Anthony didn’t try to hide the excitement over the victory as he revealed to WSOP blog that this win was something he really wished for. He admitted that his final table lineup was tough adding that he is very proud that he collected his first WSOP bracelet.

Zinoo hopes that in five or ten years he will promote poker like Daniel Negreanu does and he really wants to encourage people to get good at something and pursue it.

Norway’s Christian Usteurd got eliminated in third place which paid $456,222. This is the first time that he cashed in the World Series of Poker.

Christian Harder got eliminated in fourth place and collected a prize of $332,998. He now has 33 cashes at the series and was described as one of the toughest opponents in this tournament.

Finland’s Juha Helppi got eliminated in fifth place which paid $247,754 while Alexander Kostritsyn finished sixth collecting a prize of $144,305.

Ismael Bojang from Austria finished in seventh place and collected a prize of $187,571. This was the fifth time that Ismael cashed at this year's series.

Eighth place finisher, Shaun Deeb, was also one of the toughest opponents at the final table. He won a bracelet at this year’s series in the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em Championship and collected a prize of $318,857. In this tournament, Shaun won $112,675 for his efforts.

Christopher Santora got eliminated in ninth place which paid $$89,234.

The list of gold bracelet winners who cashed in the tournament but missed the final table includes David Chiu (13th), Mike Gorodinsky (17th) and Kory Klipatrick (22nd).