Congratulations to Jerrod Ankenman, Event No. 42 Champion!

donpeters

Heads-up play began at about 10:30 PM after the elimination of Chris Klodnicki in 3rd place. The chip stacks were about even for the match up, but once the first round of Omaha/8 kicked in, Ankenman was in full gear and began pulling away with each hand. Then, on a few hands in the Stud variant games, it became clear that Ankenman had the edge in the limit games. Ankenman admitted in his post-tournament interview that he wanted to get into limit games, specifically the flop limit games, with Altbregin because he felt those were his strengths.

Back in 2006, Ankenman placed second to Ian Johns in a $3,000 Limit Hold'em Event at the WSOP. That finish did earn him over $150,000, but the gold bracelet proved to be just out of his reach. Two years later in 2008, he placed second in another WSOP event, $10,000 World Championship Limit Hold'em, behind Rob Hollink. That score netted him over $300,000, but once again the gold bracelet eluded him.

This time around, Ankenman wouldn't let things get away from him. The first-place prize money of $241,637 is nice, but the gold bracelet he finally earned after working so hard is much more the prize that will be remembered from this victory. When asked about it he said, "Those finishes were a little bit bittersweet. It's nice to finally win the bracelet."

Ankenman began playing poker casually at the Commerce before taking the game more seriously alongside friend Bill Chen. The two would go on to coauthor The Mathematics of Poker. Chen was around to watch his buddy win the bracelet and even jumped in on some of the photos with him.

Thanks again for following our coverage and we'll be looking forward to seeing you again shortly. In the mean time, be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for all the live WSOP coverage.

Congratulations to Jerrod Ankenman on winning his first WSOP gold bracelet!

Tags: Jerrod Ankenman Sergey Altbregin