Young Poker Pro captures huge score in $1,700 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event.
16 March 2022 (Bell Gardens, CA) -- Another Bicycle Casino Main Event Champion was crowned on Wednesday evening, the second of the 2021/22 World Series of Poker Circuit tour. Back in December of 2021, Frenchman Yoann Gimenez claimed the crown.
This time around, local Poker Pro Michael Jozoff was the one to capture glory in Event #11: $1,700 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event. The prestigious tournament drew a field of 550 entrants, generating an over-$800,000 prizepool. Payouts were awarded to the top 83 finishers with Jozoff grabbing the grand prize of $161,500 and his first gold ring.
The 22-year-old had to navigate three grueling days of tournament poker before reaching his momentous achievement. Along the way, Jozoff of course ran into some tough spots as well as found some luck when needed.
“I actually cracked aces three times in this tournament,” Jozoff revealed. “In a 550-player field, typically you got to do that. Two of them were all-in pre.”
Jozoff mentioned that during Day 1 he took down pocket aces with his pocket jacks. However, the more notorious, and recorded, hand occurred on Day 2 when Jozoff cracked the pocket rockets of WSOP household name, Maria Ho, eliminating her in 48th place.
The massive pot sent Jozoff to nearly one million in chips, which provided him with a solid foundation to roll into the three-table redraw, two-table redraw, and finally the merge to an official final table. Minnesota’s Jonathan Williams was the only final-table casualty of Day 2, leaving eight competitors to bag up and move to the finale.
Day 3 began with Jozoff as one of the shorter stacks. However, Jozoff hit big in the first level of the day when he caught Corey Brass in a semi-bluff. Jozoff went on to continuously accumulate chips until he ultimately reached heads-up action with a 2-1 chip advantage over Eugene Tito.
Tito, a seasoned vet with almost $1 million in total live earnings, had been playing well all tournament. But, in the end, Tito had to settle for the runner-up spot, earning a nice payday of $99,840. It was the young guns tournament to win.
“I’m 22-years-old, so pretty young. This past year was my first year legally being able to play tournaments in the U.S. Before that, I was playing online,” Jozoff explained.
The New York native went to USC and graduated with a degree in Finance. He is now living in the southern California area and has great aspirations for the near future, including the continuation of his flourishing poker career.
“I’m going to try and get out to Vegas. I’m thinking about buying a house there and splitting time,” said Jozoff. “Have a lot of tournaments I want to play. I want to get into the PokerGos and play the High Rollers. And then when I’m not doing that, just play some cash and hang out and do some business stuff on the side.”
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