After eight years of cashes, Las Vegas based poker pro Ben Yu finally got his first gold bracelet after topping a tough field of 117 entries in the $10,000 buy-in Limit Hold'em event. Yu, who bested a final table that had four former WSOP event winners on it, also received $291,456 for his victory. His WSOP earnings are now $714,310.
"It's really big to win this for me," Yu said in a post-tournament interview. "The most important thing to me since I was 16 was to come here and win a WSOP event. Back in 2003 and 2004, like so many people I saw (Chris) Moneymaker and decided to get into the game. That's when I started dreaming about playing and winning an event at the WSOP."
Final table results:
OTHER IN-THE-MONEY FINISHERS:
Aside from the final table finishers, other gold bracelet winning players who cashed included - Ian Johns (10th), Sorel Mizzi (16th), and Brock Parker (17th).
FUN FACTS:
There were 114 males and 3 females who entered this event (3.1 percent).
The average age of participants was 38 years, with ages ranging from 21 (youngest) to 68 (oldest).
There were 13 different nations represented among the players.
During the 1990s, WSOP Limit Hold'em tournaments routinely attracted the largest fields of any tournament anywhere in the world. Several years, this tournament had twice number of entrants as the Main Event. It was traditionally offered as the kick-off event over the first weekend of the WSOP.
Winner info:
Name: Ben Yu
Birthplace: Dayton, OH
Age: 29
Current Residence: Las Vegas, NV
Marital Status: Single
Children: None
Education: B.A. Civil and Environmental Engineering (Stanford University)
Profession: Professional Poker Player
Number of WSOP Cashes: 30
Number of WSOP Final Table Appearances: 5
Number of WSOP Gold Bracelet Victories: 1
Best Previous WSOP Finish: 2nd (2010)
Total WSOP Earnings: $714,310
Personal Facts: Yu quit poker for three years to earn his college degree, then worked on Capitol Hill and lived in Panama for a time before returning to the game full-time
[Note: All statistics above include the results of this tournament]
