Sign Up For Card Player's Newsletter And Free Bi-Monthly Online Magazine

Best Online Poker Bonuses

Poker Training

Newsletter and Magazine

Sign Up

Find Your Local

Card Room

 

Tamas Lendvai Turned $600 Into $299,464 At The 2022 World Series of Poker

The Hungarian Player Outlasted 4,913 Entries In A $600 NLH Event To Capture His First WSOP Gold Bracelet

Print-icon
 

Tamas Lendvai is the latest gold bracelet winner crowned at the 2022 World Series of Poker. The Hungarian player defeated a sizable field of 4,913 entries in the $600 buy-in no-limit hold’em deepstack championship, earning his first gold bracelet and the top prize of $299,464.

“Since I’ve been playing poker I’ve been dreaming about this moment so what can I say… It means the world. It means everything and more for me and for my family," Lendvai told WSOP reporters after an emotional celebration of his win. “I did this for my dad, who’s battling cancer now. Dad, let’s do it.”

Lendvai now has nearly $2.4 million in career earnings, with this latest victory being his third-largest score yet. In 2011 he finished third in the European Poker Tour Grand Final main event for $816,327. The year before that he had taken down an Italian Poker Tour tournament for $311,000.

The big turnout for this event, which ran over the course of four days, resulted in the top 737 finishers making the money. A number of highly accomplished players made deep runs in this event, including two-time bracelet winner Eric Baldwin (111th – $2,436), 2019 WSOP main event seventh-place finisher Nicholas Marchington (15th – $14,119), and four-time bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus (14th – $14,119).

The final day began with just seven players remaining and Alex Jim in the lead. Lendvai was the shortest stack coming into day 4, with just eight big blinds to play with when cards got back in the air.

Tsuf Saltsberg fell to the bottom of the leaderboard when his pocket aces were cracked by the A-10 of Frank Reichel in the early going. Saltsberg was eliminated shortly after that in seventh place ($46,347).

Lendvai doubled up through longtime online tournament grinder Jon Van Fleet to continue his clibm up the leaderboard. He then picked up pocket aces, which fared better for him than they did for Saltsberg, as they held up against the pocket queens of Abdullah Alshanti (6th – $60,196) to narrow the field to five.

Lendvai continued his surge by knocking out Daniel Marcus in fifth place ($78,793), with pocket fives winning a race against A-J. Van Fleet kept pace by busting start-of-day leader Jim in fourth place ($103,994). The chips went in preflop with Van Fleet’s A-9 leading K-10. Both players flopped a pair, bit aces remained best from there on out.

Van Fleet would ultimately be the next to fall despite earning that recent knockout. He lost a sizable chunk of his stack with pocket tens being beaten by a rivered pair of jacks for Lendvai’s K-J. Then came his final hand, which saw him open and then four-bet shove over the three-bet of Lendvai with ADiamond Suit10Club Suit. Lendvai snap-called and rolled over ASpade SuitAClub Suit. Van Fleet was unable to come from behind and was eliminated in third place ($138,149).

Lendvai took a massive lead into heads-up play with Frank Reichel. It did not take long for him to convert his chip advantage into the title. In the last hand of this event, Lendvai open-shoved from the button with QSpade Suit10Heart Suit. Reichel called with KDiamond SuitQDiamond Suit. The board ran out 10Diamond Suit9Heart Suit4Heart Suit7Heart Suit10Spade Suit and Lendvai made trip tens to secure the title. Reichel was awarded $185,027 as the runner-up finisher.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded at the final table:

Place Player Earnings POY Points
1 Tamas Lendvai $299,464 660
2 Frank Reichel $185,027 550
3 Jon Van Fleet $138,149 440
4 Alex Jim $103,994 330
5 Daniel Marcus $78,793 275
6 Abdullah Alshanti $60,196 220
7 Tsuf Saltsberg $46,347 165
8 Tamir Saidman $35,964 110
9 John Ypma $28,129 55

Winner photo credit: WSOP / Alec Rome.

You can follow the 2022 World Series of Poker on Card Player’s series landing page, sponsored by Global Poker, the fastest growing online poker room in the world. Check out the series schedule, as well as event recaps, news, and player interviews.