Ben Craig went from short stack to victor to take down the 57-entry Bally's Main Event Mania $1,500 Main Event for $25,834. He start the eight-handed final table with less chips than all of his opponents, several of whom had more than 100 big blinds, but it just proved to be a generous head start that Craig made up over the course of the next several hours.
With the win, the 32-year-old software engineer from Chicago added to $118K in career cashes, all coming since 2017.
"I've tried a couple of times going pro," he said.