Vongxaiburana’s professional life is that of a day trader in the financial markets and he only sees poker as an activity for fun. That said, we’re sure he will find a use for the $784,353 first place prize he banked last night.
“It sounds great. I’ve been playing a long time, and it’s nice to finally win one. It was a very tough field. I’m sure they have a lot more experience, but luckily I ran pretty good and the cards fell my way.
“I just play for fun. I play a lot, mostly Pot-Limit Omaha, some Big O. I like Big O. I don’t play much else. I don’t play a lot of the mixed games.”
Action Recap
From the 402-entry field, five players returned for Day 4 to decide a winner.
Once again we saw Swedish online superstar Viktor Blom challenging for his maiden bracelet, sitting down with 5,095,000 chips, right behind chip leader Marco Johnson. Vongxaiburana was right behind with 4,910,000, promising equal chances at this late stage.
Equal chances maybe, but it was Vongxaiburana who set off with a bang from the very first hand. He won just about every pot he entered and built his stack up to 9,000,000 in no time at all.
Blom suffered in those early hands but soon got his revenge and then doubled twice against Vongxaiburana to move to the top of the chip counts.
But Marco Johnson had something to say about all this, because minutes later he was all-in against Blom, scooping the pot nicely with quads and a wheel. Game on!
Next it was Vongxaiburana’s turn for an all-in confrontation; that ended with him taking three quarters of 5,400,000 from Johnson with a nut low and a rivered straight.
Amazingly, nobody had been eliminated yet after three hours of play.
It took almost an hour more before a double elimination sent the event to three-handed play.
Shawn Rice opened to 500,000 in the cutoff and Blom went for the pot size raise to 1,580,000 in the small blind.
Phil Hui came back over the top for the maximum and both Rice and Blom called it off.
The hands turned over were:
Viktor Blom:A♥ K♥ 8♦ 5♣ 3♠
Shawn Rice: A♦ Q♥ 9♥6♣ 2♦
Phil Hui: A♣ A♠ 7♠ 5♦ 3♥
The board came down J♠ 10♥ 2♠ 7♥ J♦, all in Hui’s favour as he scooped against two players, sending Blom out in fifth place for $181,069 and Rice out in fourth for $253,276.
Hui now led the way as the players went off for a break, but no sooner had the players got comfortable in their seats, Johnson was all-in again, fighting for his tournament life against Vongxaiburana.
Johnson’s aces could not overcome the top two and a low of his rival and he was out in third place. He banked $360,711 but that will be scant consolation as this result marked 15 WSOP final tables without a win as he goes a full decade without a bracelet.
Vongxaiburana had a slender lead coming into heads-up play and the counts didn’t move much as both players seemed content to play small pots.
The lead of Vongxaiburana did eventually extend but Hui pulled it all back with a much needed double-up. But not for long, though, because Vongxaiburana pulled off a timely scoop with a better straight and a nut low to leave him close to locking up the win.
Hui did get one more double-up in but the very next hand it was all over. A pair of sixes and straight draw was up against Vongxaiburana’s straight draw, but Hui whiffed his draw while Vongxaiburana hit his to win the title and bracelet.
Speaking about Hui after his win, Vongxaiburana said:
“He’s tough. I know he has a lot of experience. I assume he was trying to grind me down. I was trying to do the same. Luckily, I had that big double up right at the end. That was good.”
Event #44: $10,000 Big O Championship Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | Veerachai Vongxaiburana | United States | $784,353 |
| 2 | Phil Hui | United States | $522,878 |
| 3 | Marco Johnson | United States | $360,711 |
| 4 | Shawn Rice | United States | $253,276 |
| 5 | Viktor Blom | Sweden | $181,069 |
| 6 | Christopher Demaci | United States | $131,841 |
| 7 | Noah Kelley | United States | $97,806 |
| 8 | Brian Battistone | United States | $73,950 |
