World Champion Espen Jørstad Wins $25k Tortilla Challenge Against Nacho Barbero

What do you do next if you win the WSOP Main Event? Well, if you’re the Norwegian phenom and 2022 world champion Espen Jørstad, then you hit someone with a tortilla wrap until they spit out water and you win $25,000.

Yes, this was the Tortilla Challenge facing five players in Northern Cyprus as the craze that is sweeping the… internet, for five minutes, maybe, touched down in the poker world for a crazy few minutes.

What Was on the Line?

The challenge cost $5,000 to enter, and with five players, hosted by the popular poker professional and face of America’s Cardroom Ebony Kenney, that meant one $25,000 High Roller seat was up for grabs. To win the challenge, the player would have to maintain their poker face while slapping – and being slapped – with a tortilla ‘wrap’ across the face.

The twist of the Tortilla Challenge is that each player must do so without releasing (or swallowing) any of the water they fill their mouths with at the start of the event. With the action filmed for posterity, the five men filled their mouths and gathered in a rough circle. Jørstad is the 2022 World Series of Poker Main Event winner and therefore the world champion, so as you can imagine, quite the circus follows him around at all times. They left him to his work here, and pretty quickly, Tony G’s ‘Slap-ellite’ was over, the former PokerNews owner taking one in the chops and losing a little water.

There are three main ways a player can lose the Tortilla Slap Challenge. Spit water from being slapped, spit water from the act of slapping, or laugh at the insanity of the challenge. That fate befell Phil Nagy as he took a mild hit from Rob Yong, but water trickled down his jersey and he ducked out of the action.

Yong All Over the Place

It’s no exaggeration to say that Rob Yong has enjoyed himself in Northern Cyprus, with his constant videos from the resort on Twitter acting as something of a travelogue for poker fans unable to make the party. After winning the High Roller against Jørstad earlier in the week, Yong has been eulogising on the merits of the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel & Casino and the Luxon Pay Mediterranean Poker Party in general.  He was the man who went out in third place, but not before one hell of a fight.

The GTO strategy for the Tortilla Slap Challenge may not have been worked on for long, let alone packaged into an app by a high profile poker player as yet, but we’re pretty sure that it would contain the advice: ‘Don’t put yourself in harm’s way by dominating the action’. This advice was not adhered to by Yong, who took a number of heavy slaps from opponents, several of which physically knocked him off his feet.

Undeterred, Yong would then immediately launch himself into his riposte, all limbs, often to the extent that he was seen to be going for other players with the kind of personal vendetta that would make Liam Neeson look meek. It eventually cost him. A brilliant slap of Yong’s didn’t affect Jørstad one bit and the comeback on Yong hurt, Nacho Barbero throwing one at Yong that caused the Dusk Till Dawn owner to lose a little water in trying to reply.

Heads-Up Somehow Goes Against Nacho

With just two men left, it was mano-a-mano for the title of most ludicrous prop bet winner ever… ahem, Slapellite champion. Jørstad looked impressive, but Nacho Barbero, whose name reads like it was designed for this very challenge several decades ago by his parents, was looking as cool as some salsa dip. With the floor strewn with wasted tortillas – this luxurious event falling outside the realms of caring too much about wasted food – the two men took each other on for the win.

Slap after slap hit hard, and fast as neither man wasted too much time in between taking a hit and delivering one. Eventually, Nacho lost water after a stunning backhand by Jørstad landed full of the cheek of his opponent. Swallowing, Barbero extended a fist to bump, gratfeuly received by the champion Jørstad.

Rob Yong emerged from the shadows to shake the new champion’s hand, but as Jørstad reached to do so, Yong delivered one last slap from a previously concealed tortilla – to much laughter all round.

Want to watch exactly how it happened? Of course you do. Rob Yong shared the edited highlights on – you guessed it – his Twitter page.