Brian Altman wins third WSOP Circuit gold ring.
14 February 2022 (Pompano Beach, FL) - For the first time the Isle Casino has crowned a champion at the World Series of Poker Main Event. Brian Altman defeated the 725-player field to take home his third WSOP Circuit gold ring and $204,935.
Altman defeated two-time bracelet winner Athanasios Polychronopoulos after a heads-up battle. Polychronopoulos earned $126,653 for his second-place finish.
The 33-year-old poker professional has been playing professionally since 2008, getting started at a young age. “I got into poker during the Moneymaker era. Everyone in high school was playing and I was hooked.”
“I am very excited to get my third ring, and now I get an invite to the ‘tournament of champions,” Altman ecstatically told WSOP.
Altman finished Day 1B in the top 10 chip leaders and came into Day 2 in the top 20 of the 117 remaining, starting the day with 304,000. He continued to grow his stack throughout Day 2, always keeping his composure. By the end of Day 2 Altman had a massive chip lead, bagging a total of 9,800,000, while the runner-up finisher was second in chips with 3,700,000.
He began Day 2 with a bang, eliminating Michael Graffeo in seventh place in the first half hour. His ace-queen out-flopped the pocket kings of Graffeo in a preflop all-in, sending him over 10,000,000 chip mark. It wasn’t until there were five players left that Altman started to get hit, doubling up multiple players. “I just had to take one hand at a time. I try not to be results oriented and just do what I think is best.” Altman explained when asked if he was worried when he started to lose some big pots.
Altman briefly lost the chip lead heads-up and used his aggressive style to double through Polychronopoulos. He check-raised the flop, bet the turn and when his straight came in on the river he jammed all-in. Polychronopoulos called, giving him more than a 2-1 chip lead.
Altman collected all the chips when he limped in and snap-called Polychronopoulos’ jam of about 3,000,000 with ace-queen and held against Polychronopoulos king-high.
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