Valentino Konakchiev Wins First Bracelet In $2,500 Freezeout At 2023 WSOP

Valentino Konakchiev came out on top of a field of 1,139 players in the 2023 World Series of Poker $2,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em freezeout event, earning $435,924 and his first gold bracelet for the win.

“I’ve been dreaming about it since I’ve been watching poker when I was 15 on TV and I can’t believe it actually happened,” Konakchiev told PokerNews live reporters after wrapping up the victory.

This was the largest live poker payday yet for the 31-year-old Bulgarian, topping the $107,638 he earned as the eighth-place finisher in the 2022 European Poker Tour Prague main event. He now has nearly $958,000 in total tournament earnings to his name.

Konakchiev also took home 1,440 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion. This was his first POY-qualified score of the year, but it alone was enough to see him catapulted into 120th place in the 2023 standings presented by Global Poker.

The third and final day of this event began with just 11 players remaining, each having locked up at least $26,926 for their efforts to that point. Several big names ran deep in this event, including 2022 Card Player Poker Tour bestbet Jacksonville main event champion TK Miles (10th), 2017 WSOP Europe €25,000 high roller winner Niall Farrell (7th), and 2021 WSOP $5,000 freezeout winner Alexandre Reard (3rd).

The final heads-up showdown for the bracelet pitted Konakchiev against Argentina’s Andres Korn, who was looking for his second WSOP title after taking down a $5,000 no-limit hold’em event back in 2017.

Konakchiev held a 5:3 chip lead to start after knocking out Reard in third place ($192,723). Korn managed to surge ahead in the early going, only to have Konakchiev double up twice to regain the advantage. In the final hand, Korn open-shoved from the button with K3 and Konakchiev called from the big blind with K9. The board ran out QJ526 and Konakchiev’s higher side card was enough to earn him the pot and the title.

Korn took home $269,438 as the runner-up finisher, increasing his career earnings to more than $2.6 million in the process.

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

Visit the Card Player 2023 World Series of Poker page for schedules, news, interviews, and the latest event results.

Winner photo credit: WSOP / Spenser Sembrat.