5,518 opponents, no deal and a $1,366,929 payday. Benjamin Rolle is the champion of the WSOP Online Millionaire Maker, the $1,500 event that guaranteed a million to the winner and ended up paying considerably more. It's the Austrian's second bracelet in twelve months, after winning the same series' Main Event in 2025 for $3,907,707.
The facts: 5,518 entries, an all-Austrian podium and a heads-up with no deal
The Millionaire Maker built a $7,863,150 prize pool, well past the $5 million guarantee, and reached its final table with Rolle as the clear leader: 127 big blinds against Adrian Strobel's 67 and Loris Gauthier's 44. All nine finalists had $92,590 locked up.
Germany's Marcel Kessler fell first (9th), followed by Jeremie Zouari (8th, $129,600) and China's Song Li (7th, $181,425). Ukrainians Denys Chufarin (6th, $253,995) and Andrii Derzhypilskyi (5th, $355,612) went next — and then came the story of the night: Thailand's Ilsu Lim, who started the final with 18 big blinds, the shortest stack at the table, finished fourth for $497,905 — more than five times the ninth-place payout.
Three-handed play was entirely Austrian. Strobel busted third ($697,152), leaving Rolle against Gauthier with a $390,774 gap between first and second. No deal was struck: they played it out to the last chip and Rolle closed it. Gauthier collected $976,155. The champion also earns a $30,000 pass to December's WSOP Paradise Super Main Event. Elsewhere, Canada's Santiago Plante won the $2,500 Turbo Championship (719 entries) for $234,332 and his first bracelet.
Why it matters: two ways to read a final table
This final produced two opposite decisions, and both were right. Rolle turned down a deal with nearly $400,000 in play; on the same day, Kovalski accepted one at EPT Barcelona. A contradiction? No. Rolle reached heads-up with the chip lead, he's an elite online tournament player — a coach who founded his own poker school — and he knows his edge in that format is real. When your edge is large, every deal costs you EV; when the table is even, a deal gives it back. The rule isn't "always deal" or "never deal": it's measuring your edge honestly.
The second lesson belongs to Ilsu Lim. With 18 big blinds nobody expects you to make noise, but a final table like this pays for survival, not accumulation. Every elimination was worth a $37,000 to $140,000 jump — and Lim climbed five spots without playing a single big pot, letting ICM pressure push the medium stacks into fighting each other. Short-stacked, your job isn't to win the tournament: it's to pick three or four flawless push-or-fold spots and let everyone else make the mistakes.
With 127 big blinds and $390,774 on the line, do you deal or play? Bring your answer to the community — final tables are won by understanding these decisions before you sit down.