The Top Five Winning Poker Players From Virginia

There is something about the state of Virginia that makes its poker players exceptional. The top five winning players from the “Old Dominion” have a staggering $67,625,253 in earnings between them. That is a ridiculous figure, one helped by the number one Virginia player having $53 million in winnings himself!

Justin Bonomo is Number One in Virginia, Number Two Globally

Justin Bonomo lives in Vancouver, but Fairfax, Virginia, will always be where his heart is. Bonomo is one of the great poker tournament players to have ever picked up playing cards! Check out his $53,263,234 in career earnings if you do not believe us.

Bonomo cut his teeth in the online poker world, where he is known as “ZeeJustin.” He had some controversy when he was younger, and PokerStars banned him for multi-accounting. Bonomo put the negativity behind him and grew as both a player and a man.

His first live cash came in January 2005 at the now-defunct PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. His first six-figure haul came 11 months later. Bonomo won a WSOP Circuit ring in April 2009 and has gone on to secure a trio of WSOP bracelets.

Bonomo won the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em 6-handed event in 2014 for $449,980. 2018 saw him win the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship for $185,965, and the $1,000,000 The Big One for One Drop, which saw Bonomo’s bankroll swell by $10,000,000!

The man from Virginia has nine scores of at least seven figures and shows no signs of slowing down.

John Gabe Patgorski of Virginia Has a $5.8M Score

Gabe Patgorski of Chesapeake, Virginia, may not be a player many are familiar with despite accumulating $7,832,692 in winnings. Patgorski enjoyed much success in mid-stakes tournaments, but everything went crazy for him from 2018 onwards.

He finished third in a Triton Poker Super High Roller Series event in Montenegro for $246,751 in May 2018. That was his only cash that year. A trio of five-figure prizes followed before Patgorski bought into the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series London event for £250,000! He went on to win and collect £4,815,000 ($5,821,826), taking his lifetime winnings to $7,832,692.

John Myung Is Approaching $3 Million

John Myung of Vienna, Virginia, may not have a WSOP bracelet on his resume, but he has something magical. What? A $1 million score! Myung won the $10,200 Showdown at the Sands in Atlantic City in 2003 and banked $1,000,000. The final table there housed Daniel Negreanu, TJ Cloutier, Thor Hansen, and Mike Matusow!

Myung stepped away from the poker world in early 2018. He cashed in a $365 WCOPC Baltimore event, but that was the last anyone has seen of him.

John Gorsuch is a WSOP Bracelet Winner

John Gorsuch must have thought he would never win a live poker tournament. Twenty-nine finishes between second and ninth place showed he had the ability, but he could not get the job done.

That was until the man from Woodbridge, Virginia, bought into the $1,500 Millionaire Maker at the 2019 WSOP. Some 8,809 players bought into the Millionaire Maker and created an $11,892,150 prize pool. Gorsuch not only navigated his way to the final table, but he also finished in first place! His reward? A cool $1,344,930! It must be nice winning $1.3 million in your first outright MTT victory!

Leo Wolpert the Former WSOP Heads-Up Champion

Leo Wolpert is fifth in the Virginia all-time money listing with $1,767,418 in earnings. He hails from Fairfax, as Justin Bonomo mentioned above. Wolpert came agonizingly close to winning a WSOP bracelet in 2009. He was the third-place finisher in the $5,000 No-Limit Shootout, losing out to Greg Mueller and Phillip Tom.

Wolpert put himself in a position to win a bracelet the following year. He and 255 others entered the $10,000 World heads-Up Championship, and Wolpert defeated all who stood before him. Wolpert banked an impressive life-best prize of $625,682 in addition to a gold WSOP bracelet.

Brad Johnson

You name the game, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Brad has either played it or placed a wager on it! Brad calls himself a natural gambler, and someone who gains as much enjoyment from writing about the crazy game of poker as he does playing it.

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