Kaplan Wins $300K at Poker World Series

It’s going to be a nice plane ride home for Deerfield’s Gregory Kaplan who placed 24th at the 2011 42nd Annual World Series of Poker.

He’ll probably be sitting pretty in first class after securing $302,005 in winnings this past week in Las Vegas, according to wsop.com. It cost $10,000 to enter the tournament. 

Deerfield is also home to one of the nation’s top Pokémon card traders. Click here to read about 10-year-old Xander Pero. 

The poker tournament kicked off about two weeks ago with almost 6,000 players from around the world. Kaplan survived more than six days of competition but was booted at the end of Monday night’s play.

The final 22 will be narrowed down to the November Nine by Tuesday. Up for grabs is $8,711,956 in prize money.

As of 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Eoghan O’Dea of Ireland was in first place with a 22,270,000 chip count. Other than Kaplan, one other player from Illinois made it as far in the tournament. Chris Moore of Countryside placed 21st in the No-Limit Hold’em Championship on Tuesday.