It took nearly 14 hours to play through the 345 entries in the Black Chip Bounty tonight, and in the end, poker newcomer Stephen Scuderi took down the top prize tonight. Scuderi’s first recorded cash was in 2024, when he won a High Roller ring in the first-ever WSOP-C Toronto.
Since then, he’s booked a total of 10 cashes before this one, which counts for his second win and second right. Scuderi was the big stack through much of the endgame, but runner-up Cindy Kerslake was hot on his heels for most of the final table.
They played heads up for nearly an hour before the final hand. Kerslake took the lead when she flopped a king and it held for a 1.5 million chip pot. But that was as close to the ring as she got. Shortly after, they got into a huge hand where Kerslake turned the straight, but she let Scuderi get there on the river with a flush.
After a 250k raise preflop from Scuderi, they checked through the board until the river where Kerslake fired 325k, then called when Scuderi raised to 2 million. She mucked her hand, saying she had a straight, while Scuderi showed ten-seven of spades for the flush and a huge lead.
It didn’t take long to finish after that. The money went in on a flop where Kerslake hit top-top, but Scuderi found a set of ducks. Kerslake turned trip tens for outs to the boat, but then bricked the river.
This will be Scuderi’s 3rd-best cash, after the High Roller ring, and a runner-up finish in a PLO event at WSOP-C Toronto this year.
