Yuan Li outlasts the competition for a WSOP victory

It took three full days to find a winner in Event #37: $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em and China's Yuan Li emerged as the latest 2023 World Series of Poker bracelet winner inside Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.

Li defeated Jonathan Camara in heads-up play for $524,777 and his first career bracelet.

The event, which ran for the second year in a row at the WSOP, drew 1,962 runners and generated a prize pool of $3,492,360.

Li, who has over $1.5 million in tournament earnings, came into the day in pole position and stayed atop the leaderboard for much of the day. Once on the final table, Li kept his foot on the gas pedal until eventually being crowned the champion.

Similar to last year, this tournament attracted some of the biggest and best players in the world. Notable names fortunate enough to make a deep run included 2009 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Cada (43rd, $12,807), three-time bracelet winner Jim Collopy (40th, $12,807), PokerGO's Donnie Peters (47th, $10,753), and four-time WSOP bracelet winner Dominik Nitsche (172nd, $4,002).

The unofficial final table kicked off as a ten-handed affair, and it didn't take long for the first elimination to take place. Darryl Ronconi came into the final table as the shortest stack and was almost all in from the big blind. Jeremy Joseph raised to cover Ronconi's stack from the small blind, and Ronconi tossed in his last few chips to make the call. The runout did not help Ronconi, and he was sent to the exit in tenth place.

Shortly after, Frank Weigel was on a short stack and moved in with ace-deuce. Pavels Spirins made the call with pocket tens. The board ran out jack-high, marking the end of the road for Weigel.

The remaining eight players took an extended break for the PokerGO team to set up their live stream cards-up coverage. Once everything was up and running, Yuriy Boyko picked up ace-king and was all in against the ace-nine held by Mark Seif. Boyko looked poised for a double, but the board ran out with four hearts for Seif to make a flush.

James Kraetz moved all in for around ten big blinds with king-nine suited and was called by Patrick Truong, who woke up with pocket jacks. The pocket pair held out to bring to the tournament to its final six players.

Seif, who was chip leader for some of the day, found himself on a 12-big blind stack and called a preflop raise with ten-nine suited from Joseph, who held queens. The flop came nine-high, and all the chips hit the middle. Seif could not improve on the turn and river and departed.

Within the same orbit, Truong was on the wrong side of a preflop cooler after he ran his ace-king into Li's pocket aces. Li's conquest to the bracelet then inched closer after he rivered a flush to crack Joseph's pair of queens after the chips piled in on the flop.

Spirins was the next to leave after his dominated ace could not leapfrog Camara's ace-jack to set up heads-up play.

The battle between Li and Camara started almost even in chips and was 70 big blinds deep. Play went back and forth for a long time until Li picked up pocket jacks and had Camara shove into him with pocket eights. After the board ran out with a full house for Li, Camara had only a single T-25,000 chip left.

On the final hand of the night, Li secured the win when his ten-nine and held up against his opponent's seven-six to secure the victory.

Final table results:
Place Player Country Prize (USD)
1 Yuan Li China $524,777
2 Jonathan Camara Canada $324,355
3 Pavels Spirins Latvia $238,129
4 Jeremy Joseph United States $176,529
5 Patrick Truong United States $132,153
6 Mark Seif United States $99,916
7 James Kraetz United States $76,302
8 Yuriy Boyko Ireland $58,860
9 Frank Weigel United States $45,871
10 Darryl Ronconi United States $36,118