Auto Sales Manager Brady Holiman Wins The 2018 WPT Choctaw Main Event

Brady Holiman works as a sales manager at a car dealership in Athens, Texas. The 37-year-old man plays poker as a hobby and has notched up a total of seven live tournament cashes till now. A couple of days ago, he secured his best live cash after winning the 2018 World Poker Tour Choctaw $3,700 NLH Main Event where he beat a tough field of 775 entries, including Viet Van Vo in heads-up play.

As mentioned, the Main Event drew a total of 755 entries this year, easily crushing the $1,000,000 guarantee to take the total prize pool to $2,548,225. Top 96 players were paid out in this event with a min-cash of $2,932. The lion’s share $469,185 went to the winner Brady Holiman from Texas, USA. Additionally, Holiman also won a seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

The final day of the event began with Holiman leading the final six players. He held two times more chips than his opponent Timothy Domboski. The two leaders showed some fire early on at the final table, with all of the chips getting in preflop with Holiman holding Ah-Ks against Domboski’s Kd- Kc. The board ran Ad- 6s -4c-2h-3s where Holiman won the pot to exit Domboski in the 6th place.

Holiman continued to fire, busting three-time WPT main event winner Anthony Zinno in 5th place and 2011 WPT bestbet Jacksonville winner Anthony Ruberto in 4th place. After Viet Vo eliminated Christopher Smith in the 3rd place, the heads-up play began between Holiman and Viet Vo with the former holding 3-to-2 lead. While Vo was able to expand his lead, he could not go all the way.

The last hand of heads-up came with the blinds running 100,000-200,000 where Vo raised to 450,000 with Kh Kd and Holiman 3-bet to 1,200,000 with As Js. Vo then 4-bet to 2,700,000. Holiman shoved his monstrous stack and Vo made a quick call for his total stack of around 9.9 million. The board ran out  Jh Jc 6d 3h 7d where Holiman’s flopped trips won him the coveted first WPT title.

Final Table Payouts (USD):

Place Player Earnings (USD)
1 Brady Holiman $469,185
2 Viet Vo $320,725
3 Christopher Smith $223,370
4 Tony Ruberto $166,605
5 Anthony Zinno $125,630
6 Timothy Domboski $95,780
7 Jacob Haller $73,845
8 Casey Diener $57,580
9 Andrew Crookston $45,410