Tuyen Dieu took home the top prize worth $287,230 in the World Series of Poker Circuit main event hosted at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina for his first gold ring. This was the Lawrenceville, Georgia resident’s first recorded WSOPC tournament cash ever, and his excitement was evident.
“What a turn card! What a f***ing turn card! I’m a champion now. Here we go, I’m rich! Finally, I’m rich,” said Dieu to reporters on the scene after the victory when speaking about the win and final hand.
“They have a lot of percent of me. A lot. I’m not happy about that right now,” said Dieu when talking about his friends from the cash games who convinced him to play the tournament.
“My name’s gonna be up there? Are you for real? Wow, I (didn’t) even know that. Maybe if my Mom sees that, she’s gonna kill me, she’s over here a lot,” said Dieu to end the interview when he found out that his name will be going up on the wall of banners with the other previous champions at Cherokee.
The $1,700 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament attracted a huge field of 1,224 over two starting flights, boosting the prize pool to $1,854,360 to almost double the $1 million guarantee. The top 134 finishers all took home at least $4,257.
All 134 players returned to day 2 having made the money, and when the dust settled, there were just nine players remaining for the final table. A couple of WSOPC ring winners made deep runs in the tournament, including Jacob Hamed (10th), Daniel Pearlman (14th), Fikret Kovac (15th), Shiva Dudani (17th), Daniel Kusnerak (19th), and Yousef Saleh (20th).
Dieu was at the bottom of the chip counts coming into the final day, with a lot of work to do on the path to victory. Gold bracelet and ring winner Ryan Eriquezzo was the first to fall in ninth place, and then eighth place went to Phoung Ta. Dieu scored a timely double-up next before it was Justin Levy whose tournament run ended in seventh place.
Dieu scored his first knockout by sending John Shepherd to the rail in sixth place, and bracelet winner David Moses was out next in fifth. The exit of Leslie Nettles in fourth place took action down to the final three players, with Dieu out in front.
Three-handed play lasted for a while before Dieu busted Joshua Palmer in third place to take a large chip lead in the final heads-up showdown for the title. He held a better than 2:1 chip advantage at that time, and the last hand came about an hour later.
Dieu raised to a million to open the action, and Toby Boas called before the flop fell K
10
10
. Both players checked to the A
on the turn. Dieu bet 1.2 million, and Boas check-raised all in for 5.3 million. Dieu enthusiastically called to cover with pocket aces in the hole, and that topped the Q10 after the 2 fell on the river. Dieu won the hand and the tournament, while Boas took home $191,474 in second place. This was the second-largest cash of Boas’ career, trailing only the $345,244 he earned as the runner-up in a $3,000 event at the 2022 WSOP.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
| 1 | Tuyen Dieu | $287,230 | 960 |
| 2 | Toby Boas | $191,474 | 800 |
| 3 | Joshua Palmer | $134,584 | 640 |
| 4 | Leslie Nettles | $96,069 | 480 |
| 5 | David Moses | $69,661 | 400 |
| 6 | John Shepherd | $51,325 | 320 |
| 7 | Justin Levy | $38,431 | 240 |
| 8 | Phoung Ta | $29,255 | 160 |
| 9 | Ryan Eriquezzo | $22,646 | 80 |
The next two WSOP Circuit tournament series both begin on May 8 with one taking place at Commerce Casino in Southern California, while the other is hosted at Caesars Southern Indiana.
Photo credit: WSOP.
