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WSOP 2022: Yuliyan Kolev Ships Millionaire Maker, Takes Home 2nd Bracelet

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2022 has found another champion in Bulgarian player Yuliyan Kolev after he shipped Event #37: $1,500 Millionaire Maker No-Limit Hold’em. This is Kolev’s second bracelet win of his career after he clinched his first at the online Event #9: $777 Lucky 7’s No-Limit Hold’em in WSOP 2021 for $146,163.

However, this amount was soon dwarfed by his latest win as he had a massive payday of $1,125,141. After five days of grinding, he defeated 7,961 entries among which were well-known bracelet winners Robert Mizrachi who finished in 27th place at the end of Day 3 and James Calderaro busted right after him in 26th place. The event generated a final prize pool of $10,627,935 and 1,196 players were paid a portion of this lucrative amount. The min-cash was $600.

This is also the Bulgarian’s first live WSOP bracelet and he was cheered on by a group of his supporters. All of them owned upside-down KFC buckets add hats off to honour a popular Bulgarian music artist.

While it was mostly smooth sailing for Kolev who entered Day 5 with 49 big blinds, there was a moment final just before the final table was set, when he lost a massive pot to Raul Martinez’s pocket seven’s despite holding ace-king. He went down to a single 25,000 chip with the big blind at 500,000. But the poker gods were on his side and he won with pocket eights against Linus Ritcher’s pocket jacks.

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When asked about this specific moment, Kolev said, “It was quite funny because I knew I was not out of the tournament, but I can’t do anything with that stack (less than one big blind). I was thinking, let’s observe what’s going on at the other table so I folded two hands before the big blind hit me. Then I went all in from under the gun and then won the hand in the big blind. Then everything started from there.”

“The feeling is much stronger because all of your friends are here. The pressure is much more,” said Kolev on winning his second WSOP bracelet and first live bracelet. Commenting about the strong rail that cheered him on, he said, “It makes me feel really really calm. It’s really important for my friends to be around me when I got really far (in the tournament).”

Final Table Payouts:

Place	Player	Country	Prize (USD)
1st	Yuliyan Kolev	Bulgaria	$1,125,141
2nd	Oren Rosen	Israel	$695,390
3rd	Tyler Gaston	United States	$522,705
4th	Yita Choong	Australia	$395,545
5th	Dominic Brazier	United States	$301,346
6th	Stanley Weng	United States	$231,145
7th	Alen Tenorio	Brazil	$178,515
8th	Bastien Joly	France	$138,821
9th	Nick Marchington	United Kingdom	$108,704
10th	Raul Martinez	Spain	$85,718

Just before this, Lok Chan clinched his first WSOP bracelet at Event #35: $2,500 Mixed Big Bet for $144,338. The event had 281 total entries and generated $625,225 in prize pool. Ali Eslami shipped Event #36: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better for $135,260. The event drew in a total of 471 entries and the top 71 players were paid from the $628,785 final prize pool.

For more news and updates on WSOP 2022, keep reading GutshotMagazine.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Telegram.

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