The largest freeroll in poker history has reached its conclusion with Chase Bricker beating Jason Christopher heads-up in one hand to take down the $1 million first place prize.
ClubWPT Gold boldly hosted a $5 million Invitational Freeroll at Wynn Las Vegas as part of the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship festival. The tournament had 1,457 players, all of whom won free seats (Golden Passports) via satellite tournaments on ClubWPT Gold, social media contests, or were invited as content creators.
The pay jumps were massive at the final table, with ninth place paying $20,000 and the winner taking home $1 million ($250,000 for second place). Each player who busted someone on the final day received a Mystery Bounty envelope. Values ranged from $0 to $200,000, and the player — Christopher — pulled the empty envelope in the cruelest way possible.
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The final table began with Daniyal Gheba holding a sizable chip advantage — more than double any other player's stack. He would start where he left off on Day 2 by eliminating Jacob Stufflebean (ninth place for $20,000) when a pocket pair lost to a flopped top pair. Gheba's luck continued even further when he opened his first Mystery Bounty and it showed $200,000, the largest available bounty.
The chip leader would fade just a bit before taking out Eric Zheng in eighth place ($25,000) when ace-high held up against a king-high flush draw. He'd add to his cash by then going to pull the $25,000 Mystery Bounty.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chase Bricker | $1,000,000 |
| 2 | Jason Christopher | $250,000 |
| 3 | Daniyal Gheba | $125,000 |
| 4 | Victor Avallone | $75,000 |
| 5 | Patrick Eskandar | $50,000 |
| 6 | Tyler Hancock | $40,000 |
| 7 | Josh Guindon | $30,000 |
| 8 | Eric Zheng | $25,000 |
| 9 | Jacob Stufflebean | $20,000 |
Josh Guindon, one of the top performers on ClubWPT for years, was next out the door in seventh place for $30,000 after losing a three-way pot to Christopher, who then pulled the aforementioned troll bounty.
Tyler Hancock, CEO of the popular StakeKings poker staking platform, was eliminated shortly after in sixth place for $40,000 after his A♠6♠couldn't crack Bricker's J♥J♦. Bricker would go on to pull a $25,000 bounty.
The eventual champion would then clip Patrick Eskandar in fifth place ($50,000) before pulling another $25,000 bounty. Gheba remained in the chip lead by a significant amount when four-handed play began, but Christopher would start taking over the table and climb ahead before long.
Bricker then secured a double through the start-of-day chip leader, leaving Gheba down to just 18 big blinds, a massive turn of events. Gheba would, shortly after, bust the smallest stack — Victor Avallone — in fourth place ($75,000). But the former chip leader would get his final few blinds in with 7♦3♦and run into Bricker's pocket kings, which held up. He was out in third place, a $125,000 payday in a freeroll.
Heads-up play then began with Bricker way out in front. The match would last all of one hand when ace-queen beat ace-ten, putting an end to the largest freeroll in poker history. Christopher took home $250,000 for second place, while the champion received $1,100,000, bounties included.
Bricker, who lives in the Dallas, Texas area, had a supportive rail at Wynn from the Dallas poker community. He said afterwards that he was appreciative of that support.
The seven-figure winner told PokerNewshe had attempted to satellite his way into the freeroll on the ClubWPT Gold platform with no luck. But he won a raffle at Wynn to get into the historic event.
"I ran pretty bad in the (WPT Prime Championship)," Bricker said of his pre-freeroll results.
The luck turned around for him this weekend when he spun up a stack over three days to scoop more than $1 million.
Bricker is well known and respected within the Texas poker scene. He had over $345,000 in live tournament results prior to the ClubWPT Gold freeroll, according to The Hendon Mob. Many of those cashes have taken place at Texas Card House Dallas, a poker room he praised.
"They have great tournaments, so it's allowed me to work on my game there because they have great monthly tournaments, great weekly tournaments," Bricker said of TCH.
*Images courtesy of the World Poker Tour.