The first tournament of the 2023 World series of Poker has come to an end, and the first gold bracelet of the series was held up high today by Peter Thai. Thai stood tall at the end of Event #1: $500 Casino Employees Event No-Limit Hold’em after he defeated James Urbanic ($46,690) in heads-up play.
A total of 1,015 entries turned out and generated a prize pool of $426,300.
Paul Balnchette finished in third, while Bruce Jiang was fourth and Day 1 chip leader Benson Tambowed out in fifth place after a double elimination that propelled Thai to the top of the chip counts.
This was the third largest Casino Employees Event in the history of the WSOP and an excellent indicator that this summer will be one of the biggest yet.