The Winners of the Fifth 10 Events of WSOP 2024

PokerListings continues to share results of WSOP 2024 with you. In this article you’ll find information about winners of the fifth ten events of WSOP, who were crowned from June 15th to June 19th.

Note: We did not include WSOP Online events and results of live WSOP events that were played next — you can find them in later articles on PokerListings. You can find previous results in the article: Winners of the Fourth 10 Events of WSOP 2024.

Xixiang Luo

For Chinese professional poker player Xixiang Luo, winning a WSOP bracelet has always been a dream. At the WSOP 2024, this dream became reality when he won Event #41: $1,500 Mixed NLH / PLO Double Board Bomb Pot, which had 1,312 entries and a $1,751,520 prize pool.

The $270,820 prize was a sweet addition to the best live cash of $311,843 Xixiang scored just a while back in April 2024 at the APT Main Event in Jeju. Due to his lack of English knowledge, the winner couldn’t give a detailed comment after his victory. Still, his friends helped translate some of his emotions:

“I’m so excited. To win with my friends here and for China… that makes it even better.”

Photo Credit: Spenser Sembrat

James “Andy McLEOD” Obst

From the end of 2019, retired Australian poker pro James Obst returned to poker only for the WSOP. He wasn’t very successful until the WSOP 2024, where James finally won Event #42: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championshi. The event had 107 entries and a generated a prize pool of $995,100. Thanks to this win, Obst secured his second bracelet and a $260,658 prize.

For a decade, James was a player known for his gold bracelet, won at WSOP 2017 in the $10,000 Razz Championship. His career ended abruptly in 2019, when he decided to chase his dream of becoming a professional tennis player and playing at Wimbledon. This decision was inspired by Stanislas Wawrinka, who started his very successful career in tennis at the same age of 28 years.

After the WSOP 2024 triumph, James shared a few details of his life after poker:

“I never really wanted to leave entirely. A part of my soul, I think, lives here at the World Series. It was a long few years without it, grinding away in Melbourne through lockdowns and doing other things. I missed it terribly. At the moment it’s balancing priorities and just figuring out how long I can stay here and enjoy this experience while not losing sight of doing the other things I want to do in my life.”

Photo Credit: Regina Cortina

Magnus Edengren

It is always a pleasure to see a poker player with pure love for the game playing at the WSOP. Swede Magnus Edengren is one of those: every year he visits Las Vegas just for fun.

Until WSOP 2024 he didn’t win any tournaments, meaning his victory in Event #43: $1,500 Mixed PLO Hi-Lo 8; Omaha Hi-Lo 8; Big O brought Edengren his first bracelet and $196,970 prize. The tournament saw a total of 853 entries and a $1,138,755 prize pool.

Edengren tried his luck as a professional player in the early 2000s but stopped after a ten years, continuing to play recreationally:

“I haven’t started playing again. I just come to Vegas every year to have fun and then I play some tournaments. I don’t really play poker anymore at all. I stopped a long time ago and just play for fun.”

Photo Credit: Hayley Hochstetler

Jared Kingery

Two years ago amateur player Jared Kingery almost did it — unfortunately, he lost the heads-up of $500 The Housewarming at the WSOP 2022, taking $433,255 and watching happy Henrieto Acain take the gold bracelet.

Jared wasn’t salty at all: that score was his first on the World Series of Poker, not to mention the biggest one ever. It’s safe to say he went home quite pleased.

However, after his WSOP 2024 victory in Event #44: $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em, which saw 1,561 entries and a $2,778,580 prize pool, Kingery wasn’t just “pleased” — even with a smaller prize of $410,359, this victory had Jared jumping for joy.

After the triumph, Jared commented on the fact that he doesn’t play professionally because he has a steady job as a longshoreman in Washington. Moreover, this year, he came to Las Vegas for only nine vacation days.

Photo Credit: Rachel Kay Winter

Maksim Pisarenko

Russian professional poker player Maksim Pisarenko secured his first WSOP bracelet and best career cash of $399,988 with a victory in Event #45: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship. The event saw 181 entries and a prize pool of $1,683,300. 

This victory was pivotal for Pisarenko since he busted out of live WSOP 2024 events eight times in a row before this victory. For that, his friends started calling him “Mr. Min-cash”, which did not sit well with him:

“I was getting upset with busting. This one is very important. I just wanted to fu**ing win first place.“

Photo Credit: Spenser Sembrat

Khang Pham

U.S. poker player Khang Pham has been playing poker since 2007 but was never lucky enough to snag a WSOP bracelet. Until 2024 that is. This year, he reached final table of the prestigious Event #46: $1,000 SENIORS No-Limit Hold’em Championship, which had 7,954 registered entries and a $6,999,520 prize pool.

With this victory, Khang took home a huge $677,326 of life-changing money. However, these results didn’t overwhelm him with pride — the first thing he said after the event ended was:

“I should have got knocked out at the end of Day 3 but I ended up getting really lucky against a great player”.

Photo Credit: Spenser Sembrat

Chris Hunichen

We’ve all had days when success seems unavoidable and everything goes so smoothly that it feels almost surreal. For U.S. poker player Chris Hunichen ,this was the day he played Event #47: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em, with 112 entries and a $10,836,000 prize pool. Hunichen started it with a clear sense of success and ended the event with a gold bracelet in his hands and his best cash to date ($2,838,389).

This victory was especially impressive since just a few days before, Chris already renewed his best cash with $2,397,312 prize for the 3rd place in the $250K Super High Roller:

“No one’s ever due in poker, but I feel like I was due and I’ve been in this position a couple times, got unlucky, a couple seconds. It was my time.“

Photo Credit: Alicia Skillman and Danny Maxwell

Christopher Vitch

Sometimes, fate works in mysterious ways. Maybe a little sinister, too. This was the case with U.S: poker player Christopher Vitch, who won Event #48: $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (8-Handed), exactly two years to the date when his mother passed away. The event in question had 2,212 registered entries and a $1,946,560 prize pool.

Commenting on his victory, Chris couldn’t ignore this new-born connection of sweet and bitter events in his life:

“It’s a strange day. It feels kind of incredible that it worked out, that I won a random tournament on this day.”

Photo Credit: Alicia Skillman

Erlend Melson

If someone tells you that cash players can’t transfer to tournaments and immediately become winners, especially if they change from NLH to PLO — just go to this article and show them Norwegian player Erlend Melsom. This fan of Pot-Limit Omaha cash games was crowned the winner of Event #49: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Freezeout, which saw 1,252 registered entries and generated a prize pool of $3,342,840 prize pool.

With this win, Melson took home his first bracelet and a $523,195 prize.

After his victory, Melson explained that he chose NLH event simply because PLO wasn’t available:

“This is my second WSOP. The plan was to mostly play pot-limit Omaha tournaments, but then I jumped into this one. I think after this [victory] I will definitely be playing more No-Limit Hold’em tournaments.”

Photo Credit: Spenser Sembrat

George Alexander

It took 15 years of grinding, six top-10 WSOP finishes and an incalculable amount of work for U.S. poker player George Alexander to finally become a WSOP champion. He conquered Event #50: $10,000 Razz Championship, which came with 118 entries and a $1,097,400 prize poo. With this win, Alexander took home his first bracelet and a $282,443 prize.

The victory made George very emotional. It motivated him to post touching tweet about his journey to this bracelet:

https://x.com/gametheorizing/status/1804421114325799311

Photo Credit: Rachel Kay Winter