Scott Seiver has secured a fifth WSOP bracelet in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship, along with another $426,744 to bump his total live earnings over $26 million and adding a title in yet another poker variant to his already lengthy list. Malcolm Trayner, meanwhile, has just started his collection, with a win in the $1,000 Mystery Millions worth $1,000,000.
The $1,500 6-Max and $10,000 Dealer’s Choice Championship continued deep into the money on Day 8, the latter still counting among its contenders Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu, with 11 players remaining. Negreanu knocked out Phil Hellmuth proving that summoning the ‘white magic’ doesn’t always work (video of them in action below).
The $1,500 Badugi title went to David Prociak, a serial WSOP finalist, who now has two bracelets of his own, while the one-day $1,000 Super Turbo Bounty was taken down by Thibault Perissat.
Negreanu and Ivey close in on Dealer’s Choice final table
It’s hard to imagine a tougher route to a final table than through the field in the $10,000 Dealer’s Choice Championship. Just sample the Day 2 bust-outs: Nick Schulman, Patrick Leonard, Maxx Coleman, Greg Mueller, David 'Bakes' Baker, Nick Guagenti and Erick Lindgren (and that’s just in the top 21 finishers).
Eleven players remain in the hunt for the $333,045 top prize, with four-time bracelet winner and inaugural DC WSOP champion Robert Mizrachi in the chip lead with 1,511,000 chips. Though closer to the other end of the counts (with 563,000 and 312,000 respectively), Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu are still in the multi-game mix and have provided all the action a WSOP railer could want, conveniently neighbours at the table for much of the day. Negreanu knocked out Phil Hellmuth (see Hand of the day) to help him on his way to the last two tables, and though short for a spell, doubled up through both Dustin Dirksen and John Monnette to keep his dreams of bracelet #7 alive.
Hellmuth, pre-busting, did his best to conjure up the run-good, dancing his way into a fold after which he coaxed Negreanu into showing him ‘the dick nine’…
True all-rounder
Scott Seiver manoeuvred his way through what turned out to be four long days of split-pot limit Omaha in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Championship, setting him with the likes of fellow finalist Benny Glaser in the elite five-bracelet category. Seiver started the unscheduled Day 4 as chip leader, as he’d spent much of the event, with just three opponents remaining.
Short stack Paul Zappulla ran into Calvin Anderson’s quads curtailing a potential comeback before Anderson, Seiver and Jonathan Cohen settled in for a very lengthy three-handed battle. Seiver finally eliminated four-time bracelet winner Anderson and then finally Cohen (who has one of his own) to show that he’s not 32nd on tournament poker’s all-time money list for nothing.
Seiver is also a cash game crusher, heads-up specialist, has bracelets in No Limit and Limit Hold’em, Razz and now Hi-Lo Omaha, and has made WSOP final tables in HORSE, 8-Game, 7-Card Stud and Triple Draw Lowball, amongst others. If he’s not a potential Hall of Fame contender, it’s hard to see what could qualify him.
100% WSOP win-rate
Australian Malcolm Trayner was, at 24, playing his first ever WSOP event in the $1,000 Mystery Millions. Play one, win one, as they say (they almost never say this). He saw off the last 17 of his opponents from a whopping 18,409-strong field to secure the million-dollar first prize, more than tripling his total live tournament winnings.
Amongst his defeated adversaries on Day 3 were bracelet-winners Alex Ziskin and Pei Li, heads-up opponent Carson Richards, and of course DJ Buckley and Valentyn Shabelnyk who exited long before the final table but picked up the $1,000,000 bounties that were, after the bracelet itself, the real highlight of this mammoth event.
Bracelet #2 for Prociak in second ever Badugi WSOP event
In the $1,500 Badugi, David Prociak pushed fellow Stud bracelet holder Matt Grapenthien into the runner up spot in this niche game of lows and suits, picking up his second WSOP title and $129,676. Start-of-day leader Tobias Leknes ended up taking fourth, Edward Yam third, while two-time WSOP bracelet winner Brandon Cantu finished in 6th place.
Prociak is another poker generalist, having had success in Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha and a variety of mixed games, with winnings now topping $2 million. Badugi is a draw game, where overall experience at limited-information decision making, picking bluffing spots and reading opponents makes all the difference, and Prociak’s all-round poker nous helped him stay focused as the chip lead changed hands through the final day. All games are good for your game.
Tice banks a cash in the 6-Max
In crossbook battle news, the first deep run for Landon Tice, gunning for Jeremy Becker all summer, has been registered in the $1,500 6-Handed NLHE, where he took 29th spot for $17,858. Now deep in the money, the final 17 players (from a bumper field of 2,526), led by Daniel Palau, will return for Day 3 at noon on Wednesday, with $439,815 up top for the eventual winner.
Still in contention are bracelet winners Anthony Marquez, Simeon Spasov and Tommy Nguyen, as well as an international line-up of short-handed poker aficionados including Chih Fan and Joseph Brumpacheco who are both within a few big blinds of the chip leader’s stack.
Perissat wins in fast-forward
Event #14: $1,000 Super Turbo Bounty NLHE both started and finished on Day 8, with France’s Thibault Perissat collecting the chips of all 2,594 entrants. A total of 396 places were paid, with min-cashes for Christian Harder, Brian Yoon, Roberto Romanello and Greg Merson. Max cash went to Perissat who won $197,308 along with his first WSOP bracelet, seeing off Ron Schindelheim in second.
Photo of the day
There's a time for quiet focus (perhaps on Wednesday when Phil Ivey returns for Day 3 of the $10K Dealer's Choice) and a time for a cheerful walk-and-talk.
Hand of the day
Phil Hellmuth went out before the money in the $10K Dealer’s Choice Championship, but not without some audience-engaging interaction with neighbour Daniel Negreanu, who took the last of his chips in a Badugi hand.
Robert Wells had done the major damage to Hellmuth’s stack in the previous hand, before Negreanu called his button shove to put him at risk. Negreanu took one card in total (on the first draw), eventually showing down 
. Hellmuth, who’d stood pat on the first draw but threw the 
on the second and drew one again on the third, showed down 
– his final 
doubled his diamonds and sent him to the rail.
Tweet of the day
Video of the day
Let's not forget that the online WSOP bracelet events dotted throughout the Series present their own elite challenge on the virtual felt, and are just as hotly contested as the live versions. Here, we present TJ's Online Bracelet Adventure, feat. Harvest Peas.
The day in numbers
17
Formats/variants in which Scott Seiver has cashed in a major tournament
9
Combined bracelets between $10K Dealer's Choice chip leader Robert Mizrachi (four) and his brother Michael (five)
16
Hours it took to complete Event #14: Super Turbo Bounty from start to finish
Results
Event #5: $1,000 Mystery Millions
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Malcolm Trayner | $1,000,000 |
| 2 | Carson Richards | $536,080 |
| 3 | Eugene Tito | $407,970 |
| 4 | Junho Song | $312,250 |
| 5 | Oshri Azran | $240,350 |
| 6 | Amir Mirrasouli | $186,080 |
| 7 | Michael Miller | $144,900 |
| 8 | Christopher Castellan | $113,490 |
| 9 | Jake Brown | $89,411 |
Event #10: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship (8-Handed)
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scott Seiver | $426,744 |
| 2 | Jonathan Cohen | $284,495 |
| 3 | Calvin Anderson | $197,582 |
| 4 | Paul Zappulla | $140,273 |
| 5 | Sami Saad El-Dein | $101,853 |
| 6 | Benny Glaser | $75,768 |
| 7 | Jake Schwartz | $57,570 |
| 8 | Jared Bleznick | $44,864 |
Event #11: $1,500 Badugi
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | David Prociak | $129,676 |
| 2 | Matt Grapenthien | $84,650 |
| 3 | Edward Yam | $56,508 |
| 4 | Tobias Leknes | $38,597 |
| 5 | Tomasz Gluszko | $26,988 |
| 6 | Brandon Cantu | $19,330 |
| 7 | Yuya Murata | $14,190 |
| 8 | Laurent A Boublil | $10,683 |
| 9 | David Stamm | $10,683 |
Event #14: $1,000 Super Turbo Bounty NLHE
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thibault Perissat | $197,308 |
| 2 | Ron Schindelheim | $131,571 |
| 3 | Nevan Chang | $96,965 |
| 4 | Jesse Yaginuma | $72,115 |
| 5 | Gary Leibovitz | $54,129 |
| 6 | Cole Griffith | $41,007 |
| 7 | Dinesh Alt | $31,358 |
| 8 | Hrair Yapoudjian | $24,207 |
| 9 | Anthony Monin | $18,866 |
Ongoing events
Event #12: $1,500 6-Handed NLHE
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Palau | 6,790,000 |
| 2 | Chih Fan | 6,765,000 |
| 3 | Joseph Brumpacheco | 6,295,000 |
| 4 | Corey Wick | 5,385,000 |
| 5 | Matthew Dodd | 4,860,000 |
| 6 | Daniel Buzgon | 4,505,000 |
| 7 | Anthony Marquez | 3,900,000 |
| 8 | Simeon Spasov | 3,750,000 |
| 9 | John Gordon | 3,075,000 |
Event #13: $10,000 Dealer’s Choice Championship (final 11)
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Robert Mizrachi | 1,511,000 |
| 2 | Venkata Tayi | 1,112,000 |
| 3 | George Alexander | 1,090,000 |
| 4 | Ryutaro Suzuki | 1,053,000 |
| 5 | David Bach | 909,000 |
| 6 | Michael Martinelli | 807,000 |
| 7 | Ben Lamb | 683,000 |
| 8 | Phil Ivey | 563,000 |
| 9 | Richard Bai | 336,000 |
| 10 | Daniel Negreanu | 312,000 |
| 11 | Max Kruse | 268,000 |
Event #15: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Lowery | 775,000 |
| 2 | Narek Avetisyan | 724,000 |
| 3 | Jonathan Hanner | 564,000 |
| 4 | William Stanford | 548,000 |
| 5 | Sean Troha | 519,000 |
| 6 | Yuval Bronshtein | 505,000 |
| 7 | Rafael Nogueira | 503,000 |
| 8 | Christian Harder | 470,000 |
| 9 | Joao Simao | 467,000 |
Event #16: $5,000 8-Handed NLHE
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Clemen Deng | 554,000 |
| 2 | Daniel Auckand | 540,000 |
| 3 | Jeffrey Farnes | 349,000 |
| 4 | Bin Weng | 343,500 |
| 5 | Daniyal Gheba | 340,500 |
| Notables | ||
| 22 | Stephen Chidwick | 271,500 |
| 31 | Erick Lindgren | 229,000 |
| 65 | Espen Jorstad | 178,500 |
| 67 | Alex Foxen | 169,500 |
| 121 | John Juanda | 124,000 |
Bracelet winners
Event #1: $5,000 Champions Reunion – Asher Conniff (USA)
Event #2: $500 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold’em – Jose Garcia (USA)
Event #3: $500 Kickoff No-Limit Hold'em Freezeout – Daniel Willis (UK)
Event #4: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better (8-Handed) – James Chen (USA)
Event #5: $1,000 Mystery Millions - Malcolm Trayner (Australia)
Event #6: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship – Darius Samual (UK)
Event #7: $1,500 Dealer's Choice – John Hennigan (USA)
Event #8: $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha (8-Handed) - Bryce Yockey (USA)
Event #9: $1,500 Limit Hold'em (8-Handed) - Nick Guagenti (USA)
Event #10: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship - Scott Seiver (USA)
Event #11: $1,500 Badugi - David Prociak (USA)
Event #14: $1,000 Super Turbo Bounty No Limit Hold'em - Thibault Perissat (France)
Coming up on Day #9
All eyes are going to be on the run-up to the final table - and the fight for the bracelet - in the $10,000 Dealer's Choice Championship, at least until one of the 11 elite combatants takes the title. With Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu still in contention, and Robert Mizrachi in the chip lead, get your elbows sharp for the fight for a spot on the rail.
Day 2 of the $5,000 8-Handed NLHE has its fair share of heavyweight players returning, none of whom came close to the overnight stack of Clemen Deng. His 554,000 chips put him healthily in front of such competition as Stephen Chidwick (271,500), Sergio Aido (226,500), Chino Rheem (200,000), Kenny Hallaert (191,000) and Scott Seiver (162,000), the latter needing no down time, apparently, between winning the $10k Hi-Lo Championship and diving straight into the next bracelet hunt.
The $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better also returns, with 192/1,277 in-the-money players looking for the bracelet and $265,361 top prize. Notables in the field include Yuval Bronshtein (currently sixth overall), Adam Friedman, David 'ODB' Baker, Mel Judah, John Racener, Shannon Shorr, Jim Collopy and Maria Ho, while WSOP Circuit legend Dan Lowery has the chip lead.
Day #8 gallery
