Bakker claimed pole position briefly, but once it was reclaimed by Stevens, he never looked back, putting in one of the most dominating performances in recent memory. When the final table began, Stevens held the lead with Dutchman Erik Bakker in second. 14,000 people watched the winning moment live on Stevens’ Twitch channel as his pocket sixes held versus the Ace-Queen of Yagen Li to claim the first prize of $2,783,433. There were 6,023 entries to this mammoth $5,000 buy-in tournament, generating a prize pool of $28,609,252, the biggest in online tournament history. Never since Jesse Pinkman escaped to freedom at the end of Breaking Bad has a primal scream been so deafening, so raw and so deserved. Bert Stevens knew he had a job to do and a job is what he did on everyone who dares to tussle with him on his way to becoming a WSOP Online Main Event champion.īehind a cloud of cigarette ash, he punched the table, flexed and ripped his t-shirt in a cathartic display of pure emotion. Howls of jubilation echoed out from a stoney farm outhouse somewhere in the Austrian countryside in the wee hours of Tuesday night. “Who’s the f*cking King of this sh*t? It’s me!!!”
