Friday, September 2, 2016 4:47 AM Local Time
Josh Mammon Takes Home Turbo Title
Canadian elementary school teacher wins first ring and $10,668 on Thursday.
Las Vegas, NV (September 2, 2016) — For Josh Mammon, the second time was the charm at the World Series of Poker Circuit at Planet Hollywood.
After finishing sevent at the final table of the $365 no-limit hold’em earlier in the series, Mammon took down his first tournament title in the $365 no-limit hold’em turbo event Thursday night. The elementary school teacher from Canada bested a field of 127 players to take home $10,668 and the ring.
“It feels good,” said Mammon. “It’s my first outright win in a bracelet or a ring event or whatever. It’s my first hardware. All of my biggest scores are fourths or sevenths, so it’s nice to win.”
This may be Mammon’s first win, but he certainly isn’t new to the game. He’s won over $182,000 playing live tournaments and has a few bigger scores, including a 13th place in a bracelet event in 2009.
With the experience he had under his belt, he wasn’t worried about coming up short in his second final table of the series.
“It wouldn’t be hard to outdo the previous final table,” he said. “I only got to play one hand and was out in seventh place. Obviously, it’s good to win and this is a good result.”
Mammon came down from the Great White North without any plans of playing the turbo. But after some failures in an earlier event that day, Mammon made the decision to jump in the event.
“To be honest, I wasn’t even planning on playing this tournament,” said Mammon. “I played the PLO a couple times and got eliminated and hopped into this one. It’s a nice end to the day.”
Before becoming an elementary school teacher last March, Mammon was playing a lot of poker while working at EA Sports and testing out their video games. Unfortunately for Mammon, testing video games isn’t what many people think it is.
“I was playing a lot of poker and was a video game tester,” said Mammon. “I was a quality assurance analyst. Everybody thinks you’re just hanging out playing video games all day, but in reality, you’re just like rubbing against the wall and making sure the guy doesn’t go out of bounds or something.”
Along with the ring, Mammon earned 50 points in the Casino Champion race. Mammon picked up 20 points for an earlier seventh place finish and sits just behind Ben Palmer in the race for the Casino Champion crown.
He wasn’t the only Canadian at the final table and was looking to jump into the race for the Casino champion title. Todd Duplantis, a fellow Canadian, also made the turbo final table just a few days after finishing runner-up to Sean Marshall in the $580 no-limit hold’em. When Duplantis and Mammon realized they were both at their second final table, they started running numbers for the Casino Championship.
“We were figuring it out or whatever,” said Mammon. “Obviously a win is worth more points, so it’s nice to get the win.”
Sitting in second place in the race, Mammon’s plans don’t change too much. He came down on a poker vacation and planned on playing a full slate of events.
“I was planning to play everything except the high roller,” said Mammon. “We don’t leave here until Tuesday, so I was planning on playing the turbo on Monday and other stuff or whatever. I obviously will be now, but it doesn’t really change too much.”