Kosei Ichinose limped in on the button and Ryan Hansen raised from the big blind. Ichinose just called and the flop came . Hansen led out with a bet and Ichinose folded, leaving himself with just one big bet. Hansen tabled for two pair.
On the next hand, Hansen raised the button and Ichinose stuck in the last of his 135,000 chips.
Kosei Ichinose:
Ryan Hansen:
The flop of to leave Hansen in the lead with king-high. The on the turn gave Ichinose a couple of more outs but the on the river bricked out and Ichinose was eliminated in second place.
It took just over 10 hours on the third and final day, but Ryan Hansen has captured his first WSOP gold bracelet in Event #44: $3,000 6-Handed Limit Hold'em. Hansen overcame a field of 162 players to take home the first-place prize of $109,692. Hansen defeated Kosei Ichinose in an epic heads-up duel that lasted nearly three hours of back and forth action.
Final Table Payouts
Place
Player
Country
Prize (USD)
1st
Ryan Hansen
United States
$109,692
2nd
Kosei Ichinose
Japan
$67,796
3rd
Kevin Erickson
United States
$46,669
4th
Ken Deng
United States
$32,864
5th
Kenny Hsiung
United States
$23,688
6th
Steve Chanthabouasy
United States
$17,486
A full recap of the day's action and the tournament will be posted shortly.
On the third and final day of the 2021 World Series of Poker Event #44: $3,000 6-Handed Limit Hold'em, Ryan Hansen was crowned the champion as he defeated Kosei Ichinose in a back-and-forth heads-up battle for $109,692 that lasted over two hours. The event attracted 162 entries to create a $432,540 prize pool, with the majority of that money awarded to the remaining players today.
“I’m a little shell-shocked right now”, said Hansen. “I was kind of a Moneymaker-effect person. Came in after that like 2004-2005, and switched to limit hold'em. I think it’s a great game; I always liked that game the best. So I switched over to that and have been playing that ever since.”
Hansen’s rail described him as a “limit hold’em specialist”, and he normally plays cash games at Borgata.
“This is the dream. I never expected this to happen. Never expected this to happen. I was just having a shot, having some fun, and look what happened.”
Event #44 Final Table Payouts
Place
Player
Country
Prize (USD)
1
Ryan Hansen
United States
$109,692
2
Kosei Ichinose
Japan
$67,796
3
Kevin Erickson
United States
$46,669
4
Ken Deng
United States
$32,864
5
Kenny Hsiung
United States
$23,688
6
Steve Chanthabouasy
United States
$17,486
Final Table Action
Ten players started the day and the remaining players quickly found themselves at an unofficial final table as three players were eliminated within fifteen minutes of starting. Those busts included John Cavanagh in tenth, Day 1 chip leader Ray Henson in ninth, and Justin Moeller in eighth.
At that point, seven players remained and those players waited an hour and a half for another elimination. John Hoang found himself with the short stack and doubled with queens as he attempted to pump up his rail, although he ultimately was the one to fall in seventh.
The six remaining players were sent off to dinner and returned for the PokerGO stream with Kevin Erickson leading the pack. When they returned, Short-stacked Steve Chanthabouasy was the first one to hit the rail and earned a sixth-place finish, and the remaining five players played for around two and a half hours before another player was eliminated.
Kenny Hsiung, who was the only bracelet winner at the final table, was the next casualty when he got his remaining chips in on the flop with top pair but fell to two pair, and soon after, Ken Deng was gone next in fourth. Erickson, who finished runner-up in Event #12: $1,500 Limit Hold'em, found himself with another deep run and was eliminated in third place when his cowboys were beaten by ace-king.
Kosei Ichinose
Heads-Up Action
When heads-up play began, Kosei Ichinose held twice the number of chips as Ryan Hansen, but that didn’t last long. Early in heads-up play, Hansen flopped quads to narrow the gap, and stacks were nearly even less than half an hour after the two began.
Hansen jumped into the lead and held more than two times as many chips as Ichinose, but once again, that lead didn’t last long. Ichinose found himself back in front and soon had a 3:1 chip lead.
Hansen was on the ropes but battled back and won a series of important hands, such as making trips and getting Ichinose to fold a number of decent-sized pots. It wasn’t long before Hansen once again took over the lead and this time, it was not one he would relinquish. Ichinose lost pots and continued to bleed chips before getting jack-ten in preflop against Hansen’s king-four. The board ran out blanks and Hansen was officially the winner and claimed his maiden bracelet.
![[user339872]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
. Hansen led out with a bet and Ichinose folded, leaving himself with just one big bet. Hansen tabled 
for two pair.
to leave Hansen in the lead with king-high. The 
on the turn gave Ichinose a couple of more outs but the 
on the river bricked out and Ichinose was eliminated in second place.
