Craig Savage Bides His Time to Triumph in WSOP $500 No Limit Holdem Freezeout

World Series of Poker 500 Freezeout 48946.htm Pokernews 🕒 3 🗒️ 464

Event #61: $500 No-Limit Holdem Freezeout at the 2025 World Series of Poker has concluded here at The Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. The event attracted a massive field of 5,082 runners, generating a total prize pool of $2,109,030 with $229,628 being awarded to the champion.

A total of 211 players bagged up from Day 1 of the tournament to fight it out in Day 2 for the title and take home the coveted WSOP bracelet along with the first-place prize.

After a relatively quick Day 2’s play, the 211 players were whittled down to the final table of nine who battled it out for the title. The final table went by fast, lasting a little over three hours. After a short heads-up match between Tony Harrison and Craig Savage, Savage was crowned the champion and took home the $229,628 first place prize whilst Harrison took home the runners-up second place prize of $152,874.

Final Table Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize (USD)
1	Craig Savage	United States	$229,628
2	Tony Harrison	United States	$152,874
3	Robbie Schiffbauer	United States	$113,244
4	Arthur Morris	United States	$84,584
5	Ben Fan	China	$63,706
6	Edwin Chang	United States	$48,387
7	Abhishek Mhatre	Canada	$37,064
8	Yudai Futai	Japan	$28,635
9	Sean Cronin	United States	$22,314

Game Plan Works for Savage

By far the biggest cash of Savage’s career and his first WSOP bracelet, the Dallas native had a relatively slow start to Day 2 and in his own words, was relatively short-stacked throughout the whole tournament. His philosophy was to just stay in the event and not take any unnecessary risks, and he felt that he would then be able to push on and win what he had promised himself to do at the beginning of the year.

Savage got a great boost to his stack by eliminating Mark Evangelista in 18th place to help him through to the final table, where he started off in fifth spot.

Again he picked his spots and bided his time laddering up the payouts and picked up some much-needed double-ups through Arthur Morris and then again when he needed luck on his side, he was awarded it. Savage also doubled up through Robbie Schiffbauer twice while also once through Harrison.

The crucial hand at the final table came when he took a monster pot from Schiffbauer, spiking an ace to send him into the chip lead, leaving Schiffbauer on fumes, who was eliminated shortly afterwards.

The heads-up battle against Harrison lasted only a few hands and wrapped up when Savage picked up pocket queens against Harrison’s ace-king. The champion spiked a queen on the flop to leave Harrison drawing dead by the turn, giving Savage the title and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

In this Series

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