WSOP's $25K PLO High Roller goes to Eldridge

David Eldridge has overcome a 476 entry-field inside the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas and defeated poker Hall-of-Famer Brian Rast heads-up to claim his second World Series of Poker bracelet and the $2,246,728 first-place prize.

Eldridge, who is commonly known by his friends as "Diamond Dave," won his last bracelet in 2021 in an online event. The Pennsylvania native overcame an over 5:1 chip deficit against Rast heads-up after putting on a show of poker prowess in the back-and-forth battle. His win today represents his largest tournament score by nearly a factor of ten and has effectively doubled his live tournament earnings.

"I'm feeling good. It was a long four days, but things worked out," Eldridge said shortly after winning the event.

Eldridge suffered a beat from Rast early in the day in a hand that would have given him about half the chips in play. Humble in victory, Eldridge explained that he was able to maintain his composure and make good hands in key spots.

"That hand [against Rast] was a really big deal. I would have had about half the chips in play, and Rast would have been eliminated, so I think that was a pretty big swing. But, I just kept grinding, and I made a lot of good hands, fortunately."

Eldridge said that, despite the score, his plan for the series will remain unchanged.

"This win doesn't change anything. I'm just going to play the Main Event and then go home!"

Rast entered as one of the short stacks alongside Juha Helppi, but quickly found himself trailing after Helppi chipped up early. However, Rast scored a key double up after going runner-runner to crack Eldridge's bottom set.

Helppi made a nice call against Eldridge to get himself back to an average chip stack, but ended up exiting in fifth place after getting all in with a set of tens on the flop and losing to Rast, who held a combo draw and ended up making a wheel to assume the chip lead.

After a bit of a lull, Yang Wang lost a few small pots to find himself on the short stack. Wang committed the rest of his chips against Eldridge after flopping an open-ended straight draw with two overs against Eldridge's two pair. Eldridge ended up drilling a full house on the turn to send Wang out in fourth.

Three-handed play started with a bang as Ethan Cahn was quickly able to score a double up against Eldridge to even out their stacks. Not long after, Rast made the nuts with Broadway and was paid off by Cahn to leave him the short stack. However, the New York native proved resilient, and Cahn managed to double up again with aces in a blind versus blind confrontation against Rast. Despite the valiant effort, Cahn was forced out in third place after running ace-king-queen-deuce into Rast's ace-queen-six-five double-suited all in preflop. Rast turned a straight to leave Cahn drawing dead and set up heads-up play.

Rast looked to make quick work of Eldridge and hopped out to an early 5:1 chip lead, but "Diamond Dave" refused to go down without a fight. After winning series of small pots, Eldridge ended up on the right side of a cooler after flopping top set against Rast's bottom set to score a double up and take the chip lead.

Rast managed to wrangle a slight chip lead back in the hands that followed and caught Eldridge bluffing to get back up to a 2:1 chip lead. Eldridge answered right back, however, by doubling through Rast with two pair and fading Rast's flush draw.

Eldridge followed the double up with a key hand that saw Eldridge bluff Rast off of a straight, followed by getting value with quads with pocket kings to leave Rast on the brink.

Rast made his last stand with ace-ten-eight-six double-suited all in preflop, but he couldn't win the flip against Eldridge's ace-queen-nine-seven to fall just shy of his seventh career bracelet.

Final Table Results
1 David Eldridge United States $2,246,728
2 Brian Rast United States $1,497,824
3 Ethan Cahn United States $1,038,097
4 Yang Wang China $731,819
5 Juha Helppi Finland $524,911
6 Billy Tarango United States $383,191
7 Liran Twito Israel $284,794
8 Anuj Agarwal United States $215,563