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The curtains have closed on Event #26: $25,000 High Roller 8-Handed No-Limit Hold’em here at the 2025 World Series of Poker in the Horseshoe and Paris, Las Vegas, and you’d be forgiven for not recognising the name of this year's champion - Chang Lee.
Not only had Lee never won a WSOP bracelet before, but he hadn’t even played a WSOP event before. Furthermore, Lee has only ever played one tournament before this in his life.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chang Lee | South Korea | $1,949,044 |
| 2 | Andrew Ostapchenko | United States | $894,265 |
| 3 | Elijah Berg | United States | $894,265 |
| 4 | Mathew Frankland | United Kingdom | $626,823 |
| 5 | Masato Yokosawa | Japan | $447,613 |
| 6 | Joe McKeehen | United States | $325,757 |
| 7 | Orpen Kisacikoglu | Turkey | $241,701 |
| 8 | Byron Kaverman | United States | $182,902 |
The high-stakes cash game player has been battling in some of the biggest cash games going, but this $25,000 High Roller was targeted. He wanted to play in this specific event, and he was here to win it.
Let’s get some context. The $25,000 High Roller had a record-breaking field, bursting at the seams with a who’s who of poker elite. 392 entries generating a prize pool of $9,212,000, lasting 25 hour-long levels across three days.
So, targeted or not, you can’t just study some solvers, turn up to a WSOP High Roller and win, can you? Well, according to Lee, that’s exactly what he did.
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It’s fair to say Lee didn’t have the smoothest of preparations coming into this event.
“I was quite tired and [had a] sore head”, he told me, alluding to his jetlag. “Four days ago, I came to the United States to register for this WSOP game. I wanted to win this tournament, I really studied the GTO”. “I was super tired because it’s 15 hours from South Korea, [and] I needed to change in L.A”.
“The first day of this tournament, I got super coolered three times - top set aces two times, lose to runner runner straight”, ultimately leading to him being eliminated. He decided to rebuy, though, choosing to do so at the very end of Day 1, which gave him a fresh stack to return to Day 2.
He soon found his rhythm. Climbing the leaderboard on Day 2 and finishing the day 11th in the chip counts. Lee’s aggressive style was starting to bear fruit.
Lee continued to play aggressively throughout Day 3, and when discussing this, he advised that this was his strategy. “I had a lot of chips and the other players were so tight, they didn’t open as much, so I thought if I bet big bets to them, they would fold”.
He didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger when bluffing either. Granted, he was caught a couple of times, but when he got one through against Mathew Frankland deep into Day 3, he didn’t hesitate to show it.
Of course, to win any poker tournament, you need your fair share of good luck, and Lee was no different. With just 16 players remaining, he was all in and at risk with pocket queens versus an opponent’s pocket kings. If Lee hadn’t found the running straight, he would have been eliminated in 16th place.
Lee never looked back from here, remaining among the chip leaders as others fell around him, advising that he was “patient to play [good] poker in order to get the bracelet”.
Chin Wei Lim was the final table's first casualty, falling at the hands of Byron Kaverman. Frankland then outflopped Kaverman to send the American to the rail in eighth before Orpen Kisacikoglu's three-bet all-in with ace-seven was called by Andrew Ostapchenko holding the dominating ace-king.
Sixth place went to Joe McKeehen, whose king-queen couldn't get there against Lee's suited ace-jack. A battle of the blinds resulted in Ostapchenko eliminating Masato Yokosawa in fifth, with Frankland bowing out in fourth for $626,823, a new career-best for the British star.
The tournament progressed to heads-up following Elijah Berg's exit at Ostapchenko's hands. Lee defeated Ostapchenko heads-up after his king-four improved to two pair, with Ostapchenko turning top pair top kicker with his ace-king.
To be decided. “Let me think about it. I need to check the stream and see if my play was good or not, and I need to decide which game is more profitable for me, cash games or tournaments.”
That concludes the PokerNewscoverage for this event, but stay tuned for our continuing coverage of the 2025 WSOP.
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