Jewelry Maker Strikes Gold: Ciro Gonzalez Wins 2026 WSOP Event #65

Ciro Gonzalez, celebrating his 60th birthday with a friend in Las Vegas, had planned to play in Event #61: $1,000 Super Seniors at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. After an early exit on Day 2 of the Super Seniors, he took a friend's advice to register for Event #65: $1,500 Freezeout No-Limit Hold'em.

This decision proved fruitful as the Cancun, Mexico native leveraged his aggressive playing style to navigate through a field of 2,617 entries. Gonzalez ultimately defeated Kyle Lin in a brief heads-up battle, securing his inaugural WSOP gold bracelet and a substantial first-place prize.

Prior to this event, Gonzalez had not recorded a five-figure score. His victory earned him $449,067 from a total prize pool of $3,474,067. He expressed that while the money is significant, the bracelet itself held the most importance for him. Gonzalez, who owns an artisanal jewelry business, has been playing Texas Hold'em for 16 years, building on decades of experience with other poker variants.

Entering the final day of the Freezeout among the top five of 33 returning players, Gonzalez's initial objective was to reach the final table. He achieved this, sitting second in chips at the unofficial final table of ten. He quickly seized the chip lead after the first elimination and maintained it throughout, eventually closing out the tournament.

| Place | Player | Country | Prize | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | Ciro Gonzalez | Mexico | $449,067 | | 2 | Kyle Lin | United States | $299,218 | | 3 | Julian Eibel | Germany | $220,399 | | 4 | Octavio Borra | Argentina | $163,838 | | 5 | Nethanel Cohen | France | $122,923 | | 6 | Brandon Hamlet | United States | $93,091 | | 7 | Jan Sanchez | United States | $71,167 | | 8 | Aram Zobian | United States | $54,926 | | 9 | Leonardo Alves | Brazil | $42,801 |