Pengfei Wang surprises field in the WSOP

After three hours on a surprise second day of Event #49: $1,500 Super Turbo Bounty here at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas during the 2023 World Series of Poker, Pengfei Wang has officially won the grand prize of $270,700 and his first WSOP bracelet by defeating Will Linden heads up. Linden took home $167,339 for his biggest career tournament cash.

Wang overcame a field of 2,226 players over the course of two days to claim his share of the $1,858,710 prize pool in the first-ever tournament he has played.

PokerNews caught up with him just after he won: "So excited! Yeah, so it's actually my first time. It's my first tournament ever. We sometimes play some private games and sometimes at the casino in Los Angeles for fun. We mostly play cash games; I don't really have tournament experience. This time, it was a lot of good luck."

If you'd look up his profile on The Hendon Mob, you'd come up empty-handed indeed. This is his first cash ever, and it's a substantial one immediately. But what was more important? The bracelet or the money?

"Well, it means a lot to me. In the beginning, when I barely got to the final table, I had a short stack,” said Wang. “I was worried and trying to get more money in the front. But when I reached the top three, I felt the bracelet was more important to me than the money."

With the average stack worth 20 big blinds, and 20-minute levels throughout the day, the action promised to be fast-paced and that it was from the start. Kenneth Maurer doubled up almost immediately before Frank Lagodich was sent to the rail by Michael Burns. A few minutes later, Danny Scott was taken out by Chen An Lin.

But some of those chips went Wang's way when he doubled through Lin with ace-king and spiked an ace on the river. Lin didn't sit still for long though and came out victorious in what was probably one of the two most important hands of the day. He scored a big double-up through Alejandro "Papo MC" Lococo with pocket jacks versus kings. The jack in the window on the flop left the Argentinian rapper short.

One double-up for Lococo came along but he couldn't keep it going as he then lost it all to Wang to finish in seventh place. Tony Gargano doubled up through Lin but gave all those chips right back to the Taiwanese player a few minutes later. Burns finished in fifth place when his stack was added to Linden's who went on a bit of a heater to take the chip lead.

Maurer's lower kicker meant the end of his tournament life as he lost his chips to Wang, and then doubled through Linden to take over the chip lead with pocket nines versus pocket eights. That didn't last long though as Linden was back in control shortly after. He picked up pocket aces to eliminate Lin to get to the heads-up stage.

It could have all been over when Wang shoved with pocket eights. Linden held the suited king-jack however the two eights on the board gave Wang quads to stay alive and double up. A failed bluff took Wang out in front, the stacks went back to even for a bit, but Wang gained momentum.

In the end, Linden shoved on a turn with an open-ended straight and flush draws. Wang called with the same straight draw but he had already hit a pair of nines. Those held up when the final card was dealt to hand him the win while he jumped into the air from happiness.

After posing for the winner photos with his friends he mentioned that he was planning to go home on Saturday.

"I might come back next week for the short deck tournaments," said Wang.

Final table results:
Place Player Country Prize
1 Pengfei Wang United States $270,700
2 Will Linden United States $167,339
3 Chen An Lin Taiwan $123,198
4 Kenneth Maurer United States $91,558
5 Michael Burns United States $68,693
6 Tony Gargano United States $52,034
7 Alejandro Lococo Argentina $39,799
8 Danny Scott United States $30,760
9 Frank Lagodich United States $23,978