Yinan Zhou Wins WSOP Paradise Super Main Event For $6 Million

Yinan Zhou took down 2024 World Series of Poker Paradise $25,000 super main event, which featured the largest guarantee in tournament poker history: $50,000,000. The Chinese player topped a field of 1,978 total entries in the no-limit hold’em affair that ran from Dec. 12-19 at Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas, earning his first WSOP gold bracelet and the massive $6,000,000 top prize.

Prior to this multi-million-dollar triumph, Zhou’s top live score was the $72,200 he earned as the 28th-place finisher in the inaugural WSOP Paradise $5,000 main event last year. He had one recorded six-figure cash to his name, which came with his runner-up showing in a $1,000 buy-in WSOP Online event last fall.

“I have no plan [for the money]… it is big money. Now I feel good. I decide to play more, practice more, study more to become better and better, to fight against the best and become the best,” Zhou said in his post-win interview on WSOP’s streaming broadcast.

In addition to the money and the hardware, Zhou was also awarded a massive haul of Card Player Player of the Year points. Despite not having any prior POY-qualified scores, the 3,780 he earned with this victory catapulted him into 54th place in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker.

There were 1,124 entries made across the four live starting flights for this tournament, with another 254 day 2 late registrants and 600 online entrants, bringing the total to 1,978. The top 299 finishers earned a piece of the huge prize pool, with none other than 17-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth being the last to be eliminated outside of the money.

Plenty of big names ran deep in this event, including Super High Roller Bowl winners Christoph Vogelsang (32nd) and Rainer Kempe (31st), two-time bracelet winner Chris Klodnicki (26th), bracelet winner Roland Rokita (22nd), bracelet winner Nick Maimone (18th), Sorel Mizzi (16th), POY contender Ren Lin (11th), and 2003 WSOP main event champion Chris Moneymaker (10th), who ran pocket nines into the pocket jacks of bracelet winner and 2010 European Poker Tour San Remo champion Liv Boeree.

The final day began with four-time bracelet winner Michael Addamo out in front and Zhou in sixth chip position.

The first knockout of at the final table saw short stack Georg Lehmann run A-9 into the A-J of Addamo, further adding to the Australian’s lead. The German walked away with $750,000 for his ninth-place showing, guaranteeing seven-figure paydays for the remaining contenders.

The first player to claim such a payout was Belarus’ Vadzim Lipauka. He called off his last 14 big blinds with A8 from the big blind facing a small-blind shove from Mustapha Kanit, who rolled over Q4. Kanit spiked top pair and held from there on a Q953J board to eliminate Lipauka in eighth place ($1,000,000).

Justin Bonomo made headlines when he claimed on social media that he was asked to remove a Palestinian keffiyeh or face disqualification on the penultimate day of this event. The American poker pro came close to adding to his collection of three bracelets, but was ultimately knocked out in seventh place when his pocket threes ran into the pocket jacks of Yinan Zhou. Bonomo picked up a gutshot straight draw on the flop to go with his outs to a set, but was unable to improve any further and settle for $1,300,000. He remains in second on poker’s all-time money list, with this latest deep run increasing his lifetime haul to $67.7 million.

Despite starting the day as the chip leader, Addamo was ultimately the next to fall. He lost a big pot with two pair against the turned broadway straight of Yinan Zhou to slide down the leaderboard and continued to trend downward from there. He eventually got all-in with QJ trailing the K8 of Boeree, The community cards that rolled off the deck were 109396, which ended Addamo’s run in sixth place ($1,650,000). He now has more than $29 million in lifetime earnings after this, his eighth seven-figure score.

6th place and $1,650,000 for Michael Addamo in the Super Main Event. A fantastic performance! He started the day as the chip leader, but after running into some tough spots throughout the day, he finished in 6th place. #GG #wsopPARADISE pic.twitter.com/kGB70bggmS

— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) December 19, 2024

Christopher Nguyen ran A-7 suited into the A-10 of Boeree to lose a chunk of his stack. He then got his last handful of big blinds in with J-10 trailing the pocket queens of Kanit. Nguyen flopped a gutshot, but was unable to hit on the turn or river and was eliminated in fifth place ($2,100,000). This was by far the largest live tournament score yet for the German, who is currently among the top contenders in the ongoing CoinPoker Cash Game World Championship.

A classic preflop race spelled the end of Boeree’s run in this event. She open shoved for just over six big blinds with 44 from the cutoff. Marcelo Aziz, who won his way into this event for free via an online satellite on GGPoker, called from the button with A8 and the 963AQ runout saw Boeree head to the payout desk to collect a career-high payday of $2,800,000. This sum also set the record as the largest single payout ever earned by a female player, surpassing the $2,748,605 that Wenling Gao earned as the runner-up in the 2020 WSOP Online main event. Boeree told Poker.org’s Tiffany Michelle in a post-bustout interview that she plans to donate 20 percent of her earnings from this event to charity.

Thanks to this record-setting windfall, the former poker pro turned host of the Win-Win podcast now has more than $6.5 million in career cashes. That’s good for fourth place on the female all-time tournament earnings leaderboard, trailing only Vanessa Selbst ($10,899,027), Kristen Foxen ($9,348,349), and Kathy Liebert ($7,113,052).

Liv Boeree shares her thoughts on her amazing run in the Super Main Event! Catch her interview with @JeffPlatt now. #wsopPARADISE #Poker pic.twitter.com/v7OdFm6Us1

— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) December 19, 2024

Three-handed play lasted for roughly two hours. After plenty of back-and-forth maneuvering, Kanit was ultimately the next to be eliminated. Shortly after winning a race to double into the chip lead, he attempted a multi-street bluff with seven high that was looked up by Zhou’s full house. While that cost him the lead, he was far from short stacked after that hand. He then ran sevens and fives into the queens and jacks of Zhou, though, to fall to around 15 big blinds. In his final hand he got all-in with A3 facing 98 of Aziz. Both players picked up flush draws by the turn, but Aziz rivered a pair of eights on a KQ268 board to win the hand. Kanit now has nearly $16.4 million in lifetime cashes, putting him just over a million away from surpassing Italy’s all-time money leader Dario Sammartino ($17.4 million).

Heads-up play began with Aziz holding 578,000,000 to Zhou’s 412,000,000. Zhou managed to edge his way in front and then began to pull away, only for Aziz to double up with A-7 besting A-8 in a preflop all-in showdown. The two took a dinner break not long after that, and returned after an hour to continue their battle for the bracelet.

By the time the final hand arose, Zhou held more than a 2:1 advantage. Zhou limped in from the button for 12,000,000 total with A6 and Aziz shoved for 285,000,000 holding K6. Zhou quickly called and was in a dominant position with five to come. Both players ended up with trips after the J7566 board was dealt, with Zhou’s ace kicker being the deciding factor. Aziz earned $4,600,000 as the runner-up, an unbelievable payday in any context, but all the sweater given that he won his way into this event via a freeroll.

“I’m feeling so grateful for this moment,” Aziz told WSOP’s Jeff Platt after his cinderella story in this tournament came to an end.

A big congratulations to Yinan Zhou, the Super Main Event winner, claiming $6,000,000! Hats off to Marcelo Aziz Junior for finishing 2nd in an incredible performance. #wsopPARADISE #Poker pic.twitter.com/lBEuuBWEmD

— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) December 20, 2024

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Photo credits: WSOP Live stream / X account.