Joseph McKeehen was the +175 favorite (bet $100 to win $175) heading into the November Nine as the overall chip leader and ended up winning the 2015 World Series of Poker on Tuesday at the Penn & Teller Theater in Las Vegas.
McKeehen took home $7.68 million by outlasting Josh Beckley, who was 14/1 and won $4.47 million.
Beckley could not be too disappointed though after he was seventh in chips going into the final event. On his last hand, the New Jersey native went all-in with a pair of fours and was beaten when McKeehen turned an ace-10 into a pair of 10s on the flop.
A 24-year-old poker pro from Pennsylvania, McKeehen had 63,100,000 chips before the November Nine event got underway, which was more than twice as many as the player with the second-highest amount – Zvi Stern – who had 29,800,000.
Stern was the 9/2 third choice to win the WSOP behind McKeehen and 7/2 second choice Max Steinberg, who had 20,200,000 chips prior to the November Nine starting.
Every member of the final table won more than $1 million after putting up $10,000 to enter the Main Event, which began back in July at the Rio. There were 6,420 entrants overall, but nobody better than McKeehen, who knocked out six of the last eight himself en route to winning the grand prize and championship bracelet that goes along with it.
San Francisco’s Neil Blumenfield had the third-most amount of chips at the final table before November Nine action started on Nov. 8 and finished third to win $3.4 million.
Steinberg, who is from Oakland, placed fourth and got $2.61 million after winning the $10,000 buy-in through a satellite event hosted by daily fantasy sports website DraftKings.com in April. Stern, who hails from Israel, was fifth and won $1.91 million.
The last four places (in order) went to Tom Cannuli ($1.43 million), Pierre Neuville ($1.2 million), Federico Butteroni ($1.1 million) and Patrick Chan ($1.001 million). Of that group, the Belgian Neuville had the lowest odds at 11/2 and was fourth in chip count going in. The Italian Butteroni had the highest odds overall as a 28/1 longshot.