The Best of the Past: 2017’s Kings of Poker

The 2017 World Series of Poker has Scott Blumstein winning the coveted $8.15 million pot, becoming the top dog of 2017. At a fairly young age of 25 years, he was dominant, never causing the audience to doubt who was going to win the prize. He did this despite stiff competition coming from Dan Ott and Benjamin Pollak, two equally talented players in their own right.

Blumstein, however, isn’t the biggest winner of 2017. There are others who made through the year with good wins, but let’s focus on his victory a bit.

The Path to Victory

Scott Blumstein did not expect his victory to be so sudden. He was on his way to it, though, when he drew good stack upon good stack to build upon the lead he held over Ott and Pollak. The duo, however, were besieged by luck—they lost their chase when they just got bad stacks while Blumstein built his lead. It was pretty fortuitous for the stacks to come, too, because Blumstein admitted he was getting tired by that point.

Almost a Disaster

Blumstein had a strong start, but the challenges from Ott created doubt in his mind. Pollak was actually eliminated by Ott, but Blumstein’s 66-hand lead was just too big of a lead to overcome. Ott actually had a chance to catch up with a king-nine combination facing off against Blumstein’s sixes. However, Blumstein drew a deuce, and Ott’s ace-eight effort would be for naught as the hand sealed Blumstein’s chip.

Fighting through the Field

It’s not as if Blumstein didn’t have a field to fight against to become the champion too. The Poker Championships attracted a crowd of around 7,221 players which played over two weeks, racking up win after win on tables. It was the third-largest field of players to compete for the chip, with the collective prize swelling up to $67,877, 400. The result becomes even more impressive once you figure out Blumstein fought back a lot of players.

Historic Run

If it wasn’t a record, it was personal history for the 25-year-old poker player. In three days, Blumstein managed to hold on to a 2-1 lead over Ott and he also managed to take down John Hesp on the first day. Through three days, he never surrendered the lead to Ott or any other players who were on his heels, accumulating stack after stack on the way to pocketing the World Poker Championships of 2017.