The 43rd Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) was held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, from May 27 to July 16, 2012.
The culminating event of the series was the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em World Championship that kicked off on July 7 with three starting flights. The 6,598-player field created a prize pool of over $62 million that paid the op 666 finishers in the Main Event.
Greg Merson of Laurel, Maryland, won his second WSOP bracelet of the year when he defeated Jesse Sylvia of Las Vegas, Nevada, to win the $8,531,853 first-place prize along with the 2012 WSOP Player of the Year award. Both Merson and Sylvia feature in a hand that they play at the final table in the 2012 WSOP Main Event Top 5 Hands video on PokerGO, where Sylvia finds life on the river to crack Merson’s pocket kings.
Sylvia is also involved in another hand where he plays a monster pot with Scott Abrams of Henderson, Nevada, to put the Main Event down to just 11 players. Merson resides in the top spot on the countdown when he applies max aggression and courage with just queen-high on the river against Jake Balsiger of Tempe, Arizona, with just three players remaining.
Watch PokerGO’s 2012 WSOP Main Event Top 5 hands now, and see where each hand ranks.
About the World Series of Poker
The World Series of Poker® is the largest, richest and most prestigious gaming event in the world, having awarded more than $3.29 billion in prize money and the prestigious gold bracelet, globally recognized as the sport’s top prize. Featuring a comprehensive slate of tournaments in every major poker variation, the WSOP is poker’s longest-running tournament in the world, dating back to 1970. In 2019, the event attracted 187,298 entrants from 118 different countries to the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and awarded more than $293 million in prize money. In addition, the WSOP has formed groundbreaking alliances in broadcasting, digital media and corporate sponsorships, while successfully expanding the brand internationally with the advent of WSOP Europe in 2007 and the WSOP Asia-Pacific in 2013 and the WSOP International Circuit Series in 2015. All WSOP events are subject to the then-current and applicable WSOP tournament rules. For more information, please visit www.wsop.com.