Ken Lind won the Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino early Monday morning following a 14-hour Day 3. Lind, a 68-year-old retiree from Layton, Utah, earned $634,809 as well as his first bracelet for the victory in the one-of-a-kind event. Remarkably, this marked his first time to cash in a World Series of Poker tournament.
Lind is a father of seven, grandfather of seven and great grandfather of two. His self-taught skills were sharp enough to don the title of champion Monday, but he says he owes his success to his friend Burrell who talked him into playing the tournament. Lind said playing in a WSOP event topped his bucket list.
For the tenth year in a row, the Seniors Event set a record for field size. For the second year in a row, the tournament drew in excess of 4,000 players. Last year, the field came in at 4,128. This year, the field grew by more than 6%, coming in at 4,407 players. Not only was this the largest Seniors Event in WSOP history, this was the largest non-re-entry single starting day event in WSOP history. The prize pool for this event came in at an impressive $3,966,300 with the top 441 finishers earning a payday.
This massive field is all the more impressive considering that the Seniors Event is still a relatively new event on the WSOP landscape. Introduced in 2001, the original Seniors event drew 340 players. This year’s field is 13 times that size and the first place payday trails only first and second place in the Millionaire Maker as the biggest payday of the summer so far.
The final tablists ranged in age from 52 to 68 and featured eight Americans and one Australian, Michel Bouskila. The headliner of the table was John Holley, who is a two-time Circuit ring winner fresh off participating in May’s WSOP National Championship in New Orleans.
Some of the players who missed out on the final table, but made the money include TJ Cloutier (428th), John Esposito (333rd), Jay Heimowitz (311th), Marsha Wolak (158th), Donnacha O’Dea (114th), Robert Varkonyi (73rd), Chris Bjorin (45th), Dan Heimiller (39th), last year’s fourth place finisher in this event, Hoyt Corkins (23rd), and rock musician and producer Steven Albini (12th).
Here are the final table results from the $1,000 Seniors No Limit Hold’em event:
1st: Ken Lind – $634,809
2nd: Dana Ott – $390,601
3rd: John Holley – $283,312
4th: Baryr Bashist – $209,856
5th: Randolph Spain – $156,629
6th: Michel Bouskila – $117,799
7th: James Miller – $89,281
8th: Jack Ernest Ward – $68,180
9th: Fernando Halac – $52,474
