The Main Event of the 49th annual World Series of Poker drew to a close the morning of Sunday, July 15, at the Rio All Suite Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. After a marathon heads-up session lasting more than 10 hours, Indianapolis, Indiana, resident John Cynn prevailed, scooping up $8.8 million in prize money and the coveted gold bracelet. Floridian Tony Miles was the runner-up, and he took home $5 million for his efforts.

John Cynn Poses With Mountain of Cash and His Winning Hole Cards



John Cynn Poses With Mountain of Cash and His Winning Hole Cards

About the Heads-up Match

Play resumed at 5:30 p.m. Vegas time on Saturday for the 10th day of the contest with the final three contenders taking their seats. Tony Miles had the chip lead with almost 239 million chips, followed by John Cynn with 129 million. Short-stack Michael Dyer held only 26 million, and he was knocked out after less than an hour.

This left Miles, with a slight chip lead, to battle it out for the bracelet with Cynn. It was to prove the longest heads-up WSOP Main Event showdown in history, lasting 199 hands. The lead see-sawed back and forth several times throughout the night and morning.

Finally, at close to 5 a.m., the final hand took place. John Cynn had more chips than his adversary although not by much. He opened from the button, and Tony Miles three-bet. Cynn called, and the flop was dealt:

K♥ K♦ 5♥

Miles made a c-bet, which Cynn called. The turn brought the 8♦ , and Miles bet all-in. John thought for a while and then made the call. The hands were revealed:

Miles: Q♣ 8♥

Cynn: K♣ J♣

With just a pair of eights, Tony Miles was drawing dead to John Cynn's trip kings. The river didn't matter, and Cynn became the champion. Interestingly, this wasn't his first success in the big show. In 2016, Cynn finished 11th place in the Main Event, picking up $650,000. His total career live MTT winnings now amount to $9.7 million.

The Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino, Home of the World Series of Poker

Image From the Casino's Facebook Page



The Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino, Home of the World Series of PokerImage From the Casino's Facebook Page

Previous Tourney Action

This year's Main Event garnered 7,874 entrants, making it the second-largest ME field ever behind only the 2006 event, which attracted 8,773 players. After the tournament began on July 2, the first few days of play saw the usual thrills and upsets as competitors were knocked out one by one.

At the end of Day 7, by which time the nine-player final table was set, all the big names had been eliminated except one: 2009 WSOP ME victor Joe Cada. Indeed, he survived Day 8 to play six-handed on Day 9. However, his dreams of a repeat championship were dashed when he was knocked out in fifth place for $2.15 million.

The final table results for the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event were as follows:

Finish Pos Name Country Prize 1 John Cynn USA $8,800,000 2 Tony Miles USA $5,000,000 3 Michael Dyer USA $3,750,000 4 Nicolas Manion USA $2,825,000 5 Joe Cada USA $2,150,000 6 Aram Zobian USA $1,800,000 7 Alex Lynskey Australia $1,500,000 8 Artem Metalidi Ukraine $1,250,000 9 Antoine Labat France $1,000,000

John Cynn Biography

John Cynn was born in 1984 in Evanston, Illinois. He attended Indiana University at Bloomington where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Supply Chain Management. Prior to taking up poker as a profession, John worked at global supply chain consulting and software firm enVista.

John first cashed in a major poker tourney in 2010, and his first WSOP cash came in 2012. His 11th-place finish in the 2016 Main Event was good for $650,000. Even before his victory on July 15, 2018, Cynn already had 12 WSOP cashes to his credit. He has also been active on the World Poker Tour, in which he has had several profitable results.

There's one other passion of John Cynn's besides poker that endears him to us here at Professional Rakeback. A quick glance through his social media accounts shows that John is a big fan of crypto-currency, which is something that we also support. In fact, Cynn sported a patch on his hoodie during the WSOP for Blockfolio, a mobile crypto-currency portfolio management app. If you don't know much about Bitcoin or other crypto coins but would like to learn how to use BTC for playing online poker, then check out our guide to getting started in Bitcoin. Also, you can read our short rundown of the best Bitcoin online poker rooms for Americans.