Simeon Spasov Wins $1,500 Six-Max No-Limit Hold'em For Second World Series of Poker Bracelet (2024)

Simeon Spasov emerged victorious in the 2024 World Series of Poker $1,500 no-limit hold’em six-max event, topping a field of 2,526 entries to earn $439,815 and his second gold bracelet. With this win, Spasov increased his career tournament earnings to more than $2.2 million while becoming just the third players from his home country of Bulgaria to have won multiple WSOP bracelets. Joining him in that prestigious group are Boris Kolev and Yuliyan Nikolaev Kolev.

This was the second-largest payday of Spasov’s tournament resume, trailing only the $527,944 he earned for taking down the 2022 WSOP $2,000 buy-in no-limit event. He has now cashed 26 times at the series, accumulating nearly $1.1 million along the way.

Spasov has made four final tables and won two titles so far this year. In March he took down a $2,200 buy-in event at the Merit Poker Carmen Series of $149,600. His latest win at the WSOP came with 1,200 Card Player Player of the Year points, which brought his total to 2,270. He now sits in 45th place in the 2024 POY race standings presented by Global Poker.

This event played out over the course of three days at Horseshoe Las Vegas. The sizable turnout resulted in a prize pool of $3,372,210, with the top 379 finishers earning a share. Plenty of big names made it down to the final handful of tables, including Landon Tice (29th), Quan Zhou (28th), Curt Kohlberg (19th), Daniel Buzgon (14th), Tommy Nguyen (12th), Jeremy Joseph (11th), and Anthony Marquez (8th).

By the time the players converged onto a single table, John Henry Gordon had taken the lead while Spasov sat in the middle of the pack. Gordon knocked out short stack Joseph Brumpacheco (7th – $62,687) to add to his lead.

Spasov scored the next elimination, winning a preflop race with A-Q against the pocket nines of Daniel Palau (6th – $83,452). Mark Dube was left short when his pocket queens clashed with the pocket kings of Steve Yea. Dube got his last few chips in with 9-4 suited soon after and was up against pocket kings again, this time held by Gordon. Dube was drawing dead by the turn and was eliminated in fifth place ($112,362).

Chih Fan’s run came to an end when his K-8 was unable to outrun the pocket sevens of Gordon. Neither player connected with the board and Fan was sent to the rail with $152,995 for his efforts.

Steve Yea ran A-9 into the A-K of Gordon. A ten-high runout changed nothing and Yea was knocked out in third place ($210,645).

Heads-up play began with roughly a 3:2 chip advantage for Gordon. Spasov overtook the lead after winning a big pot without showdown, raising the river in position with aces up against a bluff from Gordon on the end. His raise went uncalled, but he took a 2:1 lead of his own after the hand. Gordon was able to fight his way back into the lead for a time, but Spasov was back on top ahead of the final hand of the tournament.

Spasov limped from the button with 86 for 800,000 total and Gordon raised to 2,300,000 from the big blind with A7. Spasov called and the flop came down AJ10. Gordon bet 2,500,000 with top pair and Spasov called with his flush draw. The 10 on the turn drew a check from Gordon. Spasov bet 4,200,000 with his flush and Gordon check-raised all-in for 17,000,000. Spasov called and Gordon was in need of an ace or ten on the river. The 3 appeared instead, sending the pot and the title to Spasov. Gordon earned $293,218 as the runner-up finisher.

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

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Photo credits: WSOP / Hayley Hochstetler.