The 2017 World Series of Poker – the Super Bowl of online poker if the Super Bowl took two months to finish – features a record 74 bracelet events, making it a teeny tiny bit hard to keep track of all the winners. Such as the following:
Thomas Reynolds
Thomas Reynolds beat James Hughes to win Event #37, the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em, for his first tournament title, reaping $292,880 in winnings as well as shiny bracelet. Reynolds made an all-in call with a straight and flush draw, which might have been due to the fatigue that both players said to be experiencing after 109 hands. Reynolds had a little over $11,000 in earnings prior to his big finish and recorded his first WSoP cash to complement his first career win. “I love playing poker,” he said. “My wife’s very understanding.” Well, 300 Gs can be very persuasive.
Rifat Palevic
Swedish Rifat Palevic won the new $1,000 Super Turbo Bounty Event after 14 hours, which is apparently a short time. Then again, he had to compete with 1,867 players. Players started with 5,000 in chips and were given $300 for every player that they eliminated throughout the day. Twenty-minute blind levels saw the enormous field drop down to only nine in 13 hours of play. The final table lasted only 54 hands in a little over an hour. Palevic collected $183,903 and a super fabulous golden bracelet.
Ben Yu
Ben Yu, who has won two WSoP bracelets and appeared at six WSoP final tables – making him an online poker favorite –, won the $10,000 Deuce-To-Seven Triple Draw Lowball Championship for $232,738 and his second bracelet. The final six players entered this event with a combined 9 bracelets and $37.7 million live tournament earnings. “It was actually a very tough final table,” Yu said. “You have Nick Schulman, who is one of the end bosses of Bobby’s Room – very, very good, winning at everything he plays, good at everything.” it boiled down to a Yu and Shaun Deeb, who is no dweeb and won the first pot, but it was all Yu thenceforth.
Frank Maggio
Frank Maggio won the $1,000 buy-in seniors championship no-limit hold’em event, besting a record field of 5,389 players – 19% higher than last years‘ 4,499. The cyclopean turnout resulted in a massive $4,850,100 prize pool, most of which went to the 56 year old Maggio (the event was only open to players 50 years of age or older). “I come out here every year since I turned 50 to play in the Seniors event,” he said. “I cashed a couple of years ago, but this year is a big surprise.” Life begins at 50, as online poker fans are fond of saying.
Nadar Kakhmazov
Nadar Kakhmazov won the $5,000 six-max no-limit hold’em event, making $580,338 and earning his first bling. Kakhmazov finished 8th in the PokerStars Championship Sochi main event in May and won the Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian $1,100 main event in June. “I am very happy,” he said. “I have wanted to do this for three years but every time I lose two big pots deep in the tournament. I like it. I’m happy.”