WSOP Creates another Millionaire: His name is Jonathan Dimmig

During 45 years of its existence, World Series of Poker has become quite famous for creating millionaires. Yesterday, another millionaire was born in Las Vegas, after the hugely popular Millionaire Maker event reached its culmination.

At the start of play, nine hopefuls gathered at the final table, all of them eyeing that first prize of more than $1.3 million. Life changing money was up for grabs, and all they had to do to get there was to risk $1,500 and catch some good cards along the way. But only one would walk away a millionaire and while everyone else was guaranteed quite a nice payday as well, it is just not the same. Not only in terms of money, but it has a whole different sound to it: I won a million.

All of these nine players have survived the field of nearly eight thousand people to get where they were, so naturally none of them were in a rush to leave. That’s why it took quite some time to reach heads up, despite the fact they were all rather shallow.

Unfortunately for those with shorter stacks, tournament structures are designed in such a way that blinds always move up, forcing the action, and one by one they were falling, all saying goodbye to their millionaire dream, until only two were sitting across the table.

They were Jonathan Dimmig and Jeff Coburn. Although Coburn started with the lead, Dimmig was able to turn the tables, and then strike the finishing blow. It didn’t take long and it wasn’t the battle of epic proportions, but for Jonathan Dimmig, it will be a day he will long rember.

His prize? $1,319,587 for beating the second largest tournament field in the history of WSOP. Lifelong hockey player and aspiring novelist, Dimmig gets to bring the title to his native Buffalo. Not taking anything away from the runner-up Jeff Coburn, who also pocketed a hefty sum of $815,963, yesterday was, without any doubt, Dimmig’s day!

It is most certainly another great poker story, which will probably inspire many to take a shot and see if they could be next. Most will fail, but a few, like Jonathan Dimmig will make it, and their stories, like his, will become a part of poker history.

If you are interested in how it all went down, head over to the Events section and read through live updates. It was certainly one of the more exciting events of the summer so far, but there is a lot more excitement ahead of us, and we will try to bring you at least a small part of that Vegas atmosphere to your screens and other electronic devices the best we can.