Kevin Li is the first WSOP gold bracelet winner of the year after taking down the WSOP Tournament of Champions for $200,000.
The Canadian only won his maiden WSOP Circuit ring back in August and likely headed to the Commerce Casino in Southern California with little expectation given the field.
But here we are, and now a player with only eight career live tournament cashes on his record — all since July 2023 — has won one of the most coveted events of the year.
For those who don’t follow live events closely, this tournament is an invitational freeroll event for any player with a WSOP bracelet or Circuit ring.
By definition, every player here should be clued up to some extent. The final table included Dan Sepiol who scooped $5.2 million at the 2023 WPT World Championship and Scott Stewart who won the same title five months ago.
The 2025 WSOP Tournament of Champions has a winner!
Congratulations to Kevin Li on his victory in the $1 million freeroll to claim his first career WSOP bracelet and the $200,000 top prize. pic.twitter.com/ZlID7D40bL
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) May 18, 2025
Action Recap
Bally Live Poker had the honour of streaming the final table action as Kevin Li languished near the bottom of the chip counts.
But it was Scott Stewart who fell short first, unable to duplicate his success from the Wynn Las Vegas. It was a sad way to go,as well.
Pocket queens against ace-king is as standard as it comes, but when Stewart turned a queen for top set and lost out to a broadway straight it must have hurt.
Kevin Lemmer was next to leave with queen-eight struggling against pocket jacks. A straight draw teased the rail but no help was forthcoming.
Yang Xu, Maxwell Young, and Karapet Galstyan all headed to the rail in succession before Dan Sepiol dipped out of a podium finish after his ace-ten ran into ace-jack and he was out in fourth place with a $70,000 prize.
Thus far, it had been a full rout of Americans up against the one Canadian. Don Ciaglo and Shawn Rice were all that was left to halt the charge of Li.
Ciaglo had begun the day as chip leader but his tournament ended with him running a weak off-suit ace into pocket rockets.
The @wsop Tournament of Champions goes live today at 11:30 AM PT on Live at the @commercecasino!
$200,000 and a WSOP bracelet are on the line — tune in to see who rises to the top and takes it down!
Watch on the Bally Poker channel in the Bally Sports Live app or… pic.twitter.com/wX2B0kPppF
— Bally Live Poker (@BallyLivePoker) May 17, 2025
As heads-up play started, Li had only a slender lead over Rice, and even with relatively shallow stacks the pair duelled for more than an hour.
In the end it came down to Li’s king-queen against Rice’s king-four and the Canadian had completed his rout of eight Americans to bag a prize that was more than four times larger than his career results to this point.
Li was predictably shocked at his achievement, telling reporters:
“It’s insane, I never would have thought this was even possible or something that I would ever do. It is a really big honour to get to be able to come here and show off my skills.
“Poker wasn’t necessarily my main game plan. I graduated with a degree in software, and I didn’t expect to have all this time to come travel and play these events, it is a real blessing to be here.”
Check out the full replay of the 2025 WSOP Tournament of Champions below:
WSOP Tournament of Champions Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | Kevin Li | Canada | $200,000 |
| 2 | Shawn Rice | United States | $140,000 |
| 3 | Don Ciaglo | United States | $100,000 |
| 4 | Dan Sepiol | United States | $70,000 |
| 5 | Karapet Galstyan | United States | $50,000 |
| 6 | Maxwell Young | United States | $37,000 |
| 7 | Yang Xu | United States | $28,000 |
| 8 | Kevin Lemmer | United States | $21,000 |
| 9 | Scott Stewart | United States | $16,100 |
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