John Gorusch Wins 2019 WSOP Millionaire Maker

One of the things that is fun about watching poker, reading about poker, or writing about poker is that it is one of the few sports (or games, if that’s how you think of it) in which it is really easy to live vicariously through the competitors. So many of them – even the ones who make final tables at the World Series of Poker – are just regular people with a dream, so we are able to put ourselves in their shoes. Such is the case for me with the winner of the Millionaire Maker today, John Gorsuch. Though he has been infinitely more successful than me in both poker and business, he feels like an everyman, a guy who could easily be me, minus the Dallas Cowboys fandom.

Even better, he has the underdog tale, as well, as he came back from just two big blinds when there were seven players remaining. On top of that, how he got down to the felt was interesting. He said that when one of his hole cards was being dealt, it someone accidentally hit the card, causing it to be exposed. Thus, a new card was dealt, turning what would have been J-3 into pocket Jacks. Had he ended up with the J-3, Gorsuch would have folded the hand and moved on. Instead, he ended up in a coinflip with his Jacks and lost the hand and most of his stack.

Then, instead of waiting on the perfect hand and losing more chips to antes, Gorsuch just moved all-in blind. He won that one, went all-in again and hit a set, tripling up, and he was on his way.

“I think it just kind of freed me to loosen up. I think that helped catapult me,” he told WSOP.com afterward.

Gorsuch isn’t an all-time great or anything, but he did have almost a half million bucks in tournament earnings before today. Not a single penny came from a victory, though, so getting his first win here for $1,344,930 was sweet.

“I haven’t won a tournament outright since maybe 2013 and it was a little bar tournament,” he said.

As for what’s next, Gorsuch said he will definitely be playing more poker. The 42-year old started a company in his mid-20’s and just closed on the sale of his business a couple weeks ago. Then he sold his house, moved to Florida, bought an RV, and played in the WSOP.

“I’m a poker player for right now,” he told WSOP.com. “Poker is awesome. I can play poker all day, all night long. This kind of helps figure out whether or not I want to keep doing it. I don’t play cash stakes at all. You’ve got to run good in tournaments otherwise your cash flow dries up quick if you don’t supplement it with cash [games].”