Pot-Limit Omaha Nosebleed Legend Wins the 2016 WSOP $25,000 PLO High Roller
An online nosebleed pot-limit Omaha legend took down the 2016 World Series of Poker $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller event in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Jens Kyllonen, a 26-year-old pro from Helsinki, Finland who has been a fixture in the highest stakes PLO games online for years, captured his first WSOP bracelet alongside the event's massive $1.127 million first-place prize.
Ecstatic after the win, Kyllonen said the feeling of winning a WSOP bracelet in a high roller event could only be compared to his biggest winning days online.
"I can't remember when I had this kind of rush," Kyllonen said. "It has to be back in 2011 when I won a million in one day. That's a similar feeling that I can remember, but other than that, this is the biggest one."
Kyllonen got the best of a 184-player field, including WSOP bracelet winners Ryan D’Angelo and Robert Mizrachi in the final nine.
Heads-up play was a back-and-forth affair with Tommy Le, who has put together and incredible run in PLO events at the WSOP this summer, finishing fifth in Event #37: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha for $46,452, third in Event #51: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship for $376,667, and now second in the $25,000 PLO High Roller for $696,558.
$25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jens Kyllonen | $1,127,035 |
| 2 | Tommy Le | $696,558 |
| 3 | Dan Smith | $487,361 |
| 4 | Ryan D'Angelo | $347,641 |
| 5 | Veselin Karakitukov | $252,909 |
| 6 | Dmitry Savelyev | $187,724 |
| 7 | Ludovic Geilich | $142,227 |
| 8 | Sean Winter | $110,035 |
Kyllonen became the first Finnish player to win a WSOP bracelet since Jani Vilmunen and Ville Wahlbeck did so in 2009.
"It's kind of been a dream," Kyllonen said. "For some Finnish players it has been more of a dream, but I certainly appreciate the bracelet a lot. I'm going to remember it forever."
It was rather fitting that Kyllonen's win came in a pot-limit Omaha event, and one of only two tournaments, along with the 2016 WSOP Main Event, that he had planned to play this summer. He simply loves this game.
"I guess there's just more action," he said. "You can make better hands with four cards. Also the weaker players have a better shot at winning in this game, because it's easier to get lucky."
Kyllonen once famously celebrated a big upswing online by booking a $200,000 ticket to space. Launch failures with the civilian space travel project forced him to cancel last year, and Kyllonen said celebrations for his bracelet win Saturday would likely be a bit more subdued.
"Today we're going to go to the UFC fight and go out big time after that, but that's about it," he said.
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