Germany’s Hossein Ensan has won the 2019 World Series of Poker and its US$10 million first prize.
The 55-year-old German, who entered the final table as dominant chip leader, survived a dramatic final day battle with Italy’s Dario Sammartino and Canadian Alex Livingston to become the oldest Main Event champion in 20 years.
But there were some nervous moments along the way, most notably the very first hand of heads-up play when Sammartino won a monster pot holding A9 against Ensan’s J9 on a J739A board. That gave Sammartino a near 2:1 chip lead and seeming control of contest, but Ensan quickly regained control as the deck turned in his favour.
On the final hand it all went in on the turn of a T629 board with Ensan holding KK and needing to dodge the flush and straight draws of Sammartino’s 84 to secure victory. The river blanked to send the German’s vocal rail into wild celebrations.
Ensan’s name will now forever be etched in the history books as the winner of the 50th Anniversary WSOP Main Event and the second biggest of all time – its 8,569 entrants second only to the 8,773 who took part in 2006.
He also becomes the first man to have won the WSOP Main Event as well as an EPT Main Event, having taken down EPT Prague in 2017 for US$825,000.
It seems a fitting finish to two record breaking months at the Rio, which saw multiple attendance records smashed over the course of 90 bracelet events. The 187,298 entries was 51% above last year, with a total of over US$293 million in prize money awarded.
Notably, Australia’s Robert Campbell was the only player to win two bracelets, giving him a narrow lead in the WSOP Player of the Year race ahead of WSOP Europe in the Czech Republic in October.
Final table results:
| Place | Name | Nation | Prize (US$) |
| 1st | Hossein Ensan | Germany | $10,000,000 |
| 2nd | Dario Sammartino | Italy | $6,000,000 |
| 3rd | Alex Livingston | Canada | $4,000,000 |
| 4th | Garry Gates | United States | $3,000,000 |
| 5th | Kevin Maahs | United States | $2,200,000 |
| 6th | Zhen Cai | United States | $1,850,000 |
| 7th | Nick Marchington | UK | $1,525,000 |
| 8th | Timothy Su | United States | $1,250,000 |
| 9th | Milos Skrbic | Serbia | $1,000,000 |
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