Las Vegas poker player wins Epic Poker League’s first Pro/Am event

Steve O’Dwyer won the Epic Poker League’s first Pro/Am Monday at the Palms, earning $23,810 and a free seat in the tournament’s $20,000 buy-in Main Event, which began Tuesday.

O’Dwyer, 29, who is from Doylestown, Pa., but now lives in Las Vegas, topped a 190-player field in the upstart league’s first-ever event. O’Dwyer has earned more than $1 million in tournament poker.

Brandon Meyers, 28, who is originally from Minneapolis but now lives in Henderson, finished second to O’Dwyer and earned $11,900, in addition to a seat into the event.

All nine players at the Pro/Am final table won a seat in the Main Event, which is a no-limit hold’em six-handed max tournament, in which a table can’t have any more than six players. The event is expected to conclude on Friday.

The Epic Poker League is the brainchild of Jeffrey Pollack and poker professional Annie Duke, who is the commissioner. Pollack’s Los Angeles-based Federated Sports + Entertainment owns the league.

Pollack was commissioner of the Caesars Entertainment-owned World Series of Poker from 2005 to 2009.