One Life-Changing Bracelet and One Comeback: Gutierrez and Staats Strike Big at 2025 WSOP

Cristian Gutierrez Wins First Bracelet in the $600 Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack

Event #16 drew a staggering 3,110 entries, generating a prize pool of over $1.6 million and creating one of the most packed fields of the 2025 series. Among the sea of hopefuls were recognizable names — Jamie Gold, Erick Lindgren, Josh Arieh, Ryan Riess — but it was Colombia’s Cristian Gutierrez who quietly chipped up, applied pressure when it counted, and eventually steamrolled his way to his first WSOP bracelet.

Gutierrez came into the final table second in chips, and the pace was blistering right out of the gate. Within the first hour, the table was down to five. A crucial double-up pushed Gutierrez near the 40-million-chip mark, and from there, he never looked back. A pivotal hand saw him take a 3:1 chip lead over the rest of the field combined, and that dominance carried him to heads-up play against Robert Chorlian.

Although Chorlian attempted to apply pressure early in the duel, raising most of Gutierrez’s buttons, the Colombian wasn’t fazed. He bided his time, folded where he had to, and waited for the right hand to end it.

That came less than ten hands in. Gutierrez flopped two pair and Chorlian had a strong ace-high hand. By the river, Gutierrez had improved to a full house and the bracelet was his, along with a payday of $193,780 — nearly doubling his lifetime earnings in a single scoop.

Top 5 Payouts – Event #16: $600 Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Cristian Gutierrez		$193,780
2	Robert Chorlian		$129,084
3	Nick Maimone		$94,403
4	Matthew Allen		$69,675
5	Martin Nielsen		$51,900

🏆 Who Is Cristian Gutierrez?

A relative newcomer to the spotlight, Gutierrez had been putting in quiet volume both live and online, mostly in mixed formats. He’d already found a few final tables on the WSOP Circuit, particularly in Omaha, but never quite closed the deal. This win felt like the final piece of a puzzle he’d been assembling for years.

Originally from a rural farm background, Gutierrez has spoken in past interviews about what poker means to him — not just financially, but emotionally. He found the game through friends after his dreams of a professional soccer career fizzled, and over time, he found himself falling in love with the competitive grind of cards instead.

With this bracelet under his belt, Gutierrez not only adds a massive score to his resume, but also earns a seat at the table in future higher-stakes mixed games — an arena where he clearly feels at home.

Photo Credit: Regina Cortina & Rachel Kay Winter

Christopher Staats Adds Second Bracelet in $1,500 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em

Short-handed formats are often where the sharpest minds rise to the top, and Event #13 was no exception. With 2,354 players in the mix and a prize pool north of $3.1 million, only 11 returned for Day 3—and most of them brought serious firepower.

But one player, flying a little under the radar for most of the day, saved his surge for the very end.

That player was Christopher Staats.

The final table featured several momentum shifts, but Staats remained patient and calculated. The key moment came during heads-up play against two-time bracelet winner David Jackson, a well-respected short-handed crusher. The duel wasn’t a quick one — there were momentum swings, well-timed bluffs, and a few narrow escapes.

But in the end, Staats came out ahead. In the final hand, he picked up a big pocket pair at the right time and got full value, clinching his second career bracelet and a first-place prize of $414,950 — his biggest live score to date.

Emotions were running high when Christopher Staats (@justthestaats) won Event #13: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em 6-handed. Surrounded by friends and family, he secured $414,950 and his second WSOP gold bracelet. With life-changing money and some of the toughest fields in the world, the… pic.twitter.com/xxVUf4drGz

— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) June 5, 2025

Top 5 Payouts – Event #13: $1,500 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Christopher Staats		$414,950
2	David Jackson		$276,562
3	Shundan Xiao		$197,869
4	Damarjai Davenport		$143,206
5	Eshaan Bhalla		$104,858

🏆 Who Is Christopher Staats?

Oklahoma native Christopher Staats is no stranger to the WSOP grind, but his story took an unusual detour in 2024. After over a decade on the road playing tournaments, he stepped away from the circuit to take a warehouse job back home, uncertain if he’d return to poker at all.

That pause reignited something in him. By the time the 2025 series rolled around, Staats decided to give it another shot — and it paid off.

He first made waves in 2018 with a third-place finish in the Little One for One Drop, and secured his first bracelet in 2022 with an online 6-Max High Roller. But this second bracelet, earned in the live arena, carries a different weight. Not just because of the money, but because of what it represents: a return to form, a reclaimed passion, and a reminder that the game still has something left to offer him.

With his total career earnings now comfortably over $2 million, Staats hinted he might take a shot at the $25K 6-Max later this summer — but he also made it clear that the real win was being able to return home, bracelet in hand, to his kids.

Photo Credit: Rachel Kay Winter