Viera dealt with a field of 103 entrants to bag the top prize of $2,649,158 out of a prize pool of $9,939,500.
And, as you can expect, the skill level of the average player was extremely high here. But even so, Viera already had three bracelets to his name and finished runner-up in the $100,000 High Roller at the 2024 WSOP Paradise.
When that near miss was mentioned, Viera replied:
“It is just today’s event. I’m not thinking about what happened six months ago, or what’s going to happen in the next six months.”
He also won a career-best score of $4,610,000 only three months ago at the Triton stop in Jeju.
All of this combined is good reason for João Vieira to be confident in his abilities, and he was also extremely grateful for the support that he receives from family and friends.
“The confidence comes from just waking up. Doing my best for 13 or 14 years and just showing up. Showing up, showing up, grinding, being in the present, just working really hard.
“That’s where confidence comes from. Of course, results help.””Nobody walks this life alone. I’m very happy to have the wife that I have, the parents, my sister raised me, my beautiful nieces, and the support group of my friends.
“My base is also very strong, and that helps me go through the ups and downs with a humble head.”
Action Recap
Day 2 ended with Phil Ivey missing out on yet another final table appearance and there were eight players coming back for Day 3.
With $300,000 as a minimum prize for everyone left in, we could hope that the gloves would be off from the start.
In essence, an aggro start was almost inevitable given that Viera and Aram Oganyan held almost 75% of all the chips in play.
Vinny Lingham was first to leave. As the only remaining recreational this was no surprise, but he really did nothing wrong. An early bad beat led into a late position configuration where he was knocked out by pocket kings. A worthy performance.
Forty five minutes later, Emilien Pitavy walked to the rail after tangling with Oganyan.
Andrew “Lucky Chewy” Lichtenberger has been around the high-stakes scene for a long time and still regularly pops up with a great result in these high rollers that feature the world’s best players.
Last night, though, a turned two pair ran into a straight and he was gone in sixth place for $471,281.
Ben Heath was next to run out of luck after a day with more ups and downs than he can probably remember.
It all ended when his ace-five was knocked out of the park by ace-king. A flush draw on the flop gave some hope but none was forthcoming.
Ike Haxton must have been overjoyed to see all this carnage. Coming into Day 3 as the clear short stack, he was just happy to be there after fighting back from only five big blinds.
With about 12 blinds remaining, Haxton jammed all-in from the small blind with Q♥ Q♣ and got a call from Oganyan with K♠ 2♦.
The flop of 10♦ 6♣ 3♣ was great but the K♦ on the turn ruined his day and we were down to three.
It took another hour until Thomas Boivin exited the event. Once again it was Oganyan who came up with the goods at the right time.
Viera took an early lead, almost getting the job done right off the bat, but Oganyan pulled out some magic yet again to keep the fight going.
And what a fight it turned out to be. About four and a half hours later, João Vieira captured the bracelet when his K♠ J♥ came out on top of his rival’s Q♦ 8♥, sending the rail into a frenzy of cheers only a couple of hours after Phillip Sternheimer won the $10K PLO 8 Championship.
Event #38: $100,000 High Roller Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | João Vieira | Portugal | $2,649,158 |
| 2 | Aram Oganyan | United States | $1,766,099 |
| 3 | Thomas Boivin | Belgium | $1,212,020 |
| 4 | Isaac Haxton | United States | $857,253 |
| 5 | Ben Heath | United Kingdom | $625,491 |
| 6 | Andrew Lichtenberger | United States | $471,281 |
| 7 | Emilien Pitavy | France | $367,069 |
| 8 | Vinny Lingham | United States | $295,883 |
