Eric Taylor made the trip north over the Red River from Texas into Oklahoma a profitable one. Taylor kicked off 2025 with his first World Series of Poker Circuit victory at Choctaw Casino Resort on Jan. 20. Along with his first gold ring, Taylor also scored the top prize worth $259,721 to take his career earnings close to $350,000.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, we have a weekly game. I play quite a bit with a lot of people around here. I was waiting for something like this for a long time. I told myself that I would only play the ones that would make a huge score like this. This one feels pretty great,” Taylor told WSOP reporters after the win.
The $1,700 buy-in no-limit hold’em event had two starting flights to build up the total field size to 1,070 entries. The total prize pool was set at $1,621,050 to top the guarantee of $1 million. The final 162 players all min-cashed for $3,404.
Day 2 saw 111 players return with a payout of at least $4,430 ensured, and by the end of play just eight remained in the hunt for the title. Notables that made a deep run on the penultimate day of play included Quang Pham (ninth), Jared Ingles (14th), Nathanael Kogel (15th), John Land (18th), John Fagg (19th), and Hunter Cichy (29th).
Taylor was in the middle of the pack when cards got into the air on the final day of play, and he stayed quiet as Alain Reed (eighth) and Chanliang Deng (seventh) both fell during the early stages at the final table.
The first knockout punch for Taylor came when he sent Kannon McCavit to the rail in sixth place. Debbie Lee then took out her second opponent of the day when she eliminated Cody Bartlett in fifth place to take the chip lead at the first break, while Taylor was at the bottom of the final four.
The next stretch of play saw Taylor double up, and then he went on a strong run to eventually take the chip lead before Lee took out gold-ring winner Arthur Morris in fourth place to pull close to Taylor. Third place went to gold-ring winner Thomas Romeo a short time later, with Taylor scoring the bustout to give him a 25.5 million to 17.3 million for Lee at the start of heads-up play.
The final battle was a long back-and-forth affair that lasted four hours. “It’s kinda funny, earlier this tournament I was taking a little bit of flak for some of the time I was taking preflop on some decisions. This tournament I was focusing a lot on timing. About halfway through heads up it was getting really grindy. There wasn’t a lot of preflop play. She didn’t make any mistakes, played really good, so I tried to speed some things up in the heads-up match. This time it was to try to throw the timing off from earlier.”
Taylor continued, “I caught a lot of two pairs over her two pairs, it happened quite a few times. She made a couple really good calls on my bluffs, she called quite a bit of mine. It was a good battle.”
The final two players traded the chip lead multiple times, and Taylor doubled a few times to survive before the players took a dinner break. A short time after they returned, the final hand of the tournament finally played out. Lee got all in preflop with 5
4 in the hole, and Taylor had her covered holding A
2. The final board was dealt KJ
10
2A, and Taylor won the tournament with two pair. Lee was awarded $173,145 for her hard-fought battle to second place, and her career earnings now stand close to $225,000.
Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
| 1 | Eric Taylor | $259,721 | 960 |
| 2 | Sung Lee | $173,145 | 800 |
| 3 | Thomas Romeo | $120,563 | 640 |
| 4 | Arthur Morris | $85,387 | 480 |
| 5 | Cody Bartlett | $61,527 | 400 |
| 6 | Kannon McCavit | $45,120 | 320 |
| 7 | Changliang Deng | $33,686 | 240 |
| 8 | Alain Raad | $25,611 | 160 |
| 9 | Quang Pham | $19,837 | 80 |
This next WSOP Circuit stop is already underway at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California. The tournament series runs from Jan. 16-27, with the $1,700 main event taking place Jan. 24-27.
Photo Credit: World Series of Poker