Grateful Above All Else: Andrew Moreno Wins 2021 Wynn Millions ($1,460,106)
Table Of Contents
On Saturday, the $10,000 buy-in, $10,000,000 GTD Wynn Millions came to a close as the final nine players from a 1,328-entry field played down to a winner. The final table lasted approximately 11 hours, and in the end, it was Andrew Moreno walking away with the title and $1,460,106 in prize money.
Just before the Wynn Millions began, Moreno posted the following on social media:
��In April I decided to I wanted to really focus on playing and studying live poker tournaments. I created two main goals for myself. The first was to move my career earnings to over $1 million dollars. I accomplished that with my most recent win at the venetian $1,100 buy in where I bested a field of 637 players and took home $127,740.
��The second goal I have this year is to get that illusive 7 figure cash I��ve been chasing. To help me accomplish this I secured a tournament coach (wishes to remain nameless) that I am very excited about working with. A special thank you to Kristy Moreno. We��re such a great team together. I��m beyond grateful to share in parenthood with you. See you soon little man. Oh, and by the way, you��ve already cashed in a tournament and been in a winners photo with your parents. So please remember we are cool when you��re a teenager.��
Moreno, the husband of former PokerNews hostess Kristy Arnett (they��re expecting their first child), managed to accomplish his second goal in the Wynn Millions.
��I��m grateful above all else,�� said Moreno, who began the final table seventh in chips. ��I think just declaring what I wanted to do was really important to me because I believed in myself and I wanted to hold myself accountable �� I��m just so shocked it happened so quickly.��
He continued: ��I��ll be playing up until and through the WSOP until my son is born and then I��m taking a nice long break. This is what I will always remember. I��m just happy to have all these people here with me.��
2021 Wynn Millions Final Table Results
| Place | Player | County | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Andrew Moreno | USA | $1,460,106* |
| 2nd | Clayton Maguire | USA | $1,443,757* |
| 3rd | Toby Lewis | UK | $1,235,204* |
| 4th | Salim Admon | USA | $619,160 |
| 5th | Julian Milliard-Feral | France | $456,629 |
| 6th | Philip Shing | USA | $360,140 |
| 7th | Jaime Cervantes | USA | $289,361 |
| 8th | Joe Kuether | USA | $240,302 |
| 9th | Lion Yiming Lee | USA | $202,765 |
*Denotes three-way deal.
Prior to the win, Moreno had $1,056,155 in lifetime earnings according to The Hendon Mob. In May, he finished sixth in the MSPT Sycuan Casino in San Diego for $20,281, and then placed 22nd in June��s MSPT Venetian $1,600 Main Event for $18,627. Just four days later, he broke through with a win when he took down the Venetian DeepStack Championship Poker Series Event #58: $1,100 UltimateStack for $127,740, then the fourth-largest score of his career.
In 2015, he finished 28th in the WSOP Main Event for $211,821, and a year later took sixth in the 2016 WSOP Event #41: $1,500 Monster Stack for a previous career-high $219,632. In March 2019, Moreno came close to WSOP gold again when he finished runner-up to Sean Yu in the WSOP Circuit Bicycle Casino $1,700 Main Event for $130,295.
Final Table Action
It took 53 hands before the first final table elimination, which happened when Lion Yiming Lee lost a race with king-queen to the pocket sevens of France��s Julian Milliard-Feral. Two dozen hands later, poker pro Joe Kuether bowed out after shoving the small blind with queen-four and failing to get there against Jaime Cervantes, who called from the big with ace-seven.
Despite that win, Dervantes was the next to go on Hand #88 after losing a massive flip with pocket queens to the Big Slick of Toby Lewis. Lewis then dispatched Philip Shing in sixth place after the former shoved the small blind with king-eight and held against the latter, who called off with jack-nine suited.
At the dinner break, Clayton Maguire held a near 2:1 chip lead over Lewis and Salim Admon, while Moreno and Milliard-Feral sat on the short stacks. The latter wound up busting in a flip situation when ace-queen failed to get there against the pocket tens of Lewis, but Moreno started to climb out of his hole.
In a pivotal hand, his pocket queens held against the pocket nines of Salim Admon to send the latter out in fourth place. That hand gave Moreno a stack to compete against Maguire and Lewis, so it didn��t take long before the idea of a deal was discussed.
The final three players each locked up seven-figure scores while shaving 10% of the prize pool to continue to play for �C the winner would receive an additional $313,000 and the runner-up $100,907.
Maguire, who began the final table as the chip leader, would go on to dispatch Lewis setting up a heads-up match against Moreno. After securing a double to take over the chip lead, Moreno had Maguire on the ropes. In the final hand, Maguire got his stack in with ace-king only to fall to the ace-queen of Moreno after two queens appeared on the board.
��It was probably the best event I��ve ever played as far as the structure and the room,�� said Moreno. ��The floors listen to the players a lot, and there was always an open-ended conversation. Everything about the tournament was pristine.��
PokerNews will be returning to Wynn on Tuesday to live report Day 2 of the $1,600 Mystery Bounty, which you can find by clicking here.
