Pierre Milan had $3,056 in WSOP earnings coming into play today. It was easy to call him the underdog as he entered the day as one of the shorter stacks and had no final table experience. Milan quickly proved he was no underdog early into the final table though, as he chipped up and never let his foot off the gas pedal, winning lots of uncontested pots. No fear was shown by Milan at the final table and he showed calmness and confidence all the way until the final card was dealt. Milan navigated through the tough final table and beat bracelet winner Justin Oliver heads-up to earn his first bracelet and shoot his WSOP earnings from $3,056 to more than $500,000.
The 25-year-old professional poker player made quick work of Justin Oliver in heads-up play, ending it in just three hands. The final three players were eliminated in less than a half hour. Milan's rail went crazy as he took down the biggest pot of the night in the second hand of heads-up play and left Oliver with less than four big blinds. The whole night, Milan's rail was one of the loudest and most supportive, even as the tournament went late into the night.
"My rail was really helping," said Milan. "It was just like I was home."
Milan is the 14th French player to earn a WSOP bracelet ever and is the first one to do so in 2014. His win more than doubles France's 2014 WSOP earnings from just about $200K to more than $700K. He denied Oliver the opportunity of winning bracelets in back-to-back years. Oliver won the $2,500 No Limit Hold'em Four-Handed event last year.
Justin Oliver was the lone bracelet winner at this final table, but it did have two other players who have made final tables before, Barry Hutter and Jamie Armstrong. In fact, this is the third consecutive year Armstrong has final tabled a WSOP event.
The $2,500 No Limit Hold’em event drew 1,165 players and generated a prize pool of $2,650,375. The top 117 finishers each earned a payday. The notables who cashed include Will Failla (91st), Scotty Nguyen (83rd), Josh Arieh (76th), Shawn Busse (44th), Rep Porter (18th), and one of last year’s November Niners, David Benefield, who bubbled the final table in tenth place. Here are the final table results for the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em event:
1st: Pierre Milan - $536,7682nd: Justin Oliver - $332,1983rd: Matt Salsberg - $207,8424th: Thad McNulty - $150,8595th: Barry Hutter - $111,3686th: Jamie Armstrong - $83,4867th: Andy Phan - $63,5028th: Daniel Laming - $48,9529th: Sam Cohen - $38,244