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WSOP: The first bracelets found their new owners, chess master became champion
Without further ado, let's get straight to this year's first bracelet holder. The first tournament was traditionally the $500 Casino Employees, intended for casino employees. It brought in 1,015 entries and a prizepool of $426,300. The winner here was Peter Thai, who took home $75,535.
The tournament number two, the $25,000 High Roller (6-Handed) with 207 entries and a prize pool of $4,864,500, was won by Swiss chess master Alexandre Vuilleumier. He has only been playing poker for a few years and was able to beat Chance Kornuth heads-up. He took home $1,215,864 for the win and Chance had to settle for $751,463.
The $1,500 Dealer's Choice (6-Handed) also knows its winner. Here the prizepool reached the value of $608,760 thanks to 456 entries. $131,879 was waiting for the winner, and this amount was taken by American Poker Pro Chad Eveslage. This earned him the second bracelet.
Michael Moncek also won his second bracelet of the night, becoming the $5,000 Mixed NLH/PLO champion. The entries counter stopped here at the final number of 568 and the prize pool was worth $2,612,800. PLO specialist Fernando "JNandez" Habegger stood in Moncek's way at the end. However, Moncek was able to deal with him and take home $534,499.JNandez took home his biggest live cash of $330,344 for second place.
The game is on in event number 8, the $25,000 Heads-up NLH Championship, and it has attracted the world's best. There were 64 players at the beginning of the game and this list did not miss names like Phil Ivey, Doug Polk, Dominik Nitsche, Adrian Mateos, Espen Jorstad, Sean Winter, Jeremy Ausmus, Erik Seidel, Stephen Chidwick, Dan Smith, Dan Zack, Chance Kornuth, Shaun Deeb, Chris Brewer, Mikita Badziakouski, Justin Bonomo or Daniel Negreanu.
Among these stellar names, the top 16 included: Doug Polk, Chris Brewer, Chance Kornuth and Sean Winter.Phil Ivey failed to beat John Smith in the first heads-up, Justin Bonomo failed to beat Henri Puustinen, Erik Seidel was defeated by Gabor Szabo, and Daniel Negreanu ran into Robert Perez in the second round. The prizepool here is worth $1,504,000 and $507,020 is up for grabs.
Finally, let's talk about the players who have many different titles, awards and millions of dollars under their belt, but they still lack the most valuable jewel - the WSOP gold bracelet.
Isaac Haxton has almost 36 million in live winnings, but he still doesn't have a bracelet. The closest he came was in 2009 in the $40,000 40th Annual NLH event, where he finished second for $1.2 million. Chris Brewer is approaching 10 million in live tournament winnings, he has titles from Triton, EPT, Poker Masters and WPT Online, but he is still missing a bracelet.
Seth Davies has live winnings worth almost 21 million, titles from WSOPC Online, EPT Monte Carlo, SHRB Europe and WPT, but he still hasn't won a bracelet. Poker commentator and Women's Hall of Famer Maria Ho has $4.5 million in winnings, but her accomplishments still lack a WSOP title. Josh Reichard has 14 WSOPC rings under his belt and nearly $2.5 million in live tournament winnings. However, he still doesn't have a bracelet either.
Swedish player Niklas "Lena900" Astedt is one of the best players online, having already won $25.5 million in these waters. On top of that, he won another $2.1 million in live tournaments, but a WSOP bracelet is still only in his dreams. The last name on our list will be Shannon Shorr, who has more than $11.1 million in winnings and titles from the WPT, USPO, and Poker Masters. Who do you think can anyone from this group get their first wsop bracelet this year?
Source: Pokernews, PokerGO