Since 17 July 2019, Hossein Ensan is the new champion of the World Series of Poker, being the second German contender to win the WSOP. He is also the second oldest contender to ever win the Main Event, preceded by Noel Furlong who was 61 when he won the 1990 series. There were many dramatic and exciting moments during the series. One of them is the fact that this was the 50th annual series sponsored by 888 poker for the fifth year in a row.
Their squad stormed the 2019 WSOP to expand their 888 poker squad which gives members the ability to have training sessions with world champs and 888 poker ambassadors to improve your poker skills and strategies both online and offline.
The champion’s road to glory was full of ups and downs. On Sunday evening he entered with an outstanding chip lead and almost went wire-to-wire. His climb to the top brought him against Dario Sammartino. Ensan entered the heads up play with a slight chip lead, but Sammartino didn’t back down and managed to surpass him.
Ensan regained the leading position in an hour. The whole play lasted for about 4 hours with 101 hands played. At exactly 1:23 a.m. Dario Sammartino was awarded $6 000 000 for the runner up spot and Ensan got to write his name in poker history.
The hand that decided it all was pocket kings held by Ensan while Sammartino had a flush draw and an inside straight draw. When the river turned up blank Hossein was victorious. Dario Sammartino had the shortest pack of chips and he moved up and down the leaderboard. Then with two straight hands, he got 98 million in chips and was closing in on Livingston. What happened next had fans glued to their screens. As the game developed, Livingston made a better 2 pair and got 78 million chips, and only three hands later he lost a hand to Ensan. Then the future champ raised to 4 million and Sammartino went all in with his 50 million. Sammartino had ace-jack and Ensan held pocket sixes. To continue playing, Sammartino made a straight and raised to 104 million.
After three more hands, Sammartino was ahead of Livingston by winning 121 million. Livingston won a few hands against Ensan to come back to second place. In the next 45 minutes, everyone lingered at their place. In a few hands, Sammartino fell to 75 million and lost another hand just 40 minutes later when Livingston rivered a straight. Livingston was in the lead now, putting Ensan in second place. Sammartino wasn’t having second place so he did his best and quickly regained about 90 million. For some time he and Livingston were in an unending war against each other.
In half an hour, Sammartino took the lead. Livingston, in an attempt to make a comeback, held his ground with an ace-jack, but unfortunately ran into the ace-queen of Hossein Ensan. That’s how Livingston ended up being the first casualty of the battle and ended up third place earning $ 4 000 000. Dari Sammartino was the Andy Ruiz of that showdown except that he didn’t get the title in the final round when facing Ensan. The ones that followed him were Garry Gates, Kevin Maahs, Zhen Chai, Nick Marchington, Timothy Su and Milos Skrbic.
One event on Day 1C served as an omen of what was to come. There was an earthquake in the neighboring state of California that was felt in Las Vegas. The earthquake shook the Rio for some time and play was paused. After security made sure that all rooms were safe to play in.