The 2023 World Series of Poker is a wrap after almost two months of intense poker action. Daniel Weinman captured this summer’s Main Event title to round out a WSOP that saw records smashed.

While much of the WSOP took place on physical poker tables, there were 20 online bracelet events open to players based in Nevada and New Jersey. So if you’ve not been following what’s taken place on WSOP.com, then check out this round-up of everything you need to know about the online series.

2023 NV/NJ WSOP Online Winners

Huge Numbers Head to Virtual Felt

Tens of thousands headed to the online streets in search of WSOP glory, with 32,078 entries (including rebuys) recorded across the WSOP Online schedule.

The most attended tournament was Online Event #12: $500 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack, which saw 2,961 entries. Tom Hall was the last player standing and collected the $176,920 up top along with his first bracelet.

The payout saw the Brit cross the $8 million mark in both live and online tournament earnings.

Over $22 Million Collected

The buy-ins for the bracelet events varied from $333 to $5,300. However, thirteen of the tournament buy-ins were under $1,000.

Across the online series, $22,747,888 was collected, but this is prior to the rake being taken out. From that figure, $2,329,386 was generated in rake, leaving $20,418,520 for the prize pools in which $3,505,498 was paid in first-place prizes.

Biggest Payout

The tournament that built the biggest prize pool on WSOP.com was Online Event #13: $5,300 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Championship. Sam Soverel was the eventual winner of the unique event, which played out online until the final table.

The final nine players congregated at Horseshoe, Las Vegas, to play out the end stage of the tournament, which saw Soverel capture his second bracelet and the $393,516 first-place prize.

Also, a big winner from the online bracelet events was Jeremy Ausmus, who secured his sixth bracelet within the last two years. He came out on top in Online Event #8: $3,200 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller for $360,036 after he overcame a final table that included Chance Kornuth and 2021 WSOP Main Event champion Koray Aldemir.

Bunch of First-Time Bracelet Winners

While the likes of Soverel and Ausmus added to their bracelet collection from the online series, there were plenty of winners who were able to adorn their wrists with poker’s most-sought after prize.

WSOP Player of the Year frontrunner Ian Matakis was just one of those after he took down Online Event #2: $500 No-Limit Hold’em Bankroll Builder for $120,686.

The aforementioned Hall, Cody Bell, Danny Wong, Gary Belyalovsky, Harley Brooks, Joe Serock, Stanislav Barshak, Robert Como, Zachary Grech, Blaze Gaspari, Vitor Dzivielevski, Tom Marchese, Julien Sitbon and Christian Roberts were also other players to win their maiden WSOP bracelet.

2023 NV/NJ WSOP Online By the Numbers

Editor & Live Reporter

Calum has been a part of the PokerNews team since September 2021 after working in the UK energy sector. He played his first hand of poker in 2017 and immediately fell in love with the game. Calum’s proudest poker achievement is winning the only tournament he has ever played in Las Vegas, the prestigious $60 Flamingo evening event.

Nikhil “Nik Airball” Arcot took a beating on Tuesday night’s Hustler Casino Live stream in one of the biggest and most insane pot-limit Omaha cash games ever publicly witnessed.

It’s rare for PLO to take center stage in the live-stream world, and who better to commentate the action than Joey Ingram, perhaps the greatest ambassador for “the great game?”

The lineup was stacked and included poker legend Tom Dwan and Santhosh Suvarna, a long-time high roller who is becoming a regular in the live-stream community.

Hustler Casino Live is promoting PLO this week, a poker variant that is popular but not nearly to the level of no-limit hold’em. Poker fans don’t get to see pot-limit Omaha on a live-stream often, but they can again on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

There was clearly plenty of interest Tuesday night when over 11,000 concurrent viewers were tuned in consistently, and at times viewership had surpassed 14,000 eyeballs. Not only that but many poker fans were talking about the game on social media.

Another Rough One for Airball

Nik Airball had been a big winner on Hustler Casino Live for quite some time. But he’s been on a huge downswing on the Hustler Casino-based poker show since May, including a $997,000 loss during the historic $1 million buy-in games.

According to TrackingPoker.com, which hasn’t been updated over the past week, he was down $44,594 on HCL across 80 sessions. Add in a $90,000 winning session since and then subtract the $519,000 he dusted off Tuesday night and his cumulative losses are now around $474,000, and that doesn’t even include the $1 million he lost in a heads-up challenge against Matt Berkey or the $260,000 he lost on Bally’s Big Bet Poker earlier this month.

During the first PLO game on Hustler Casino Live, Airball ran into it time after time. It would be virtually impossible to have run any worse. He was repeatedly all in preflop and got scooped multiple times throughout the session when running it twice.

The blinds were at $500/$500/$1,000 with a $2,000 big blind ante, and that created a number of massive pots preflop, with players often three and four-betting the size of the pot — sometimes even five-betting. Everyone at the table bought in initially for $50,000, but the stack sizes drastically fluctuated throughout the seven-hour stream, thanks to hands such as the following.

https://twitter.com/HCLPokerShow/status/1681542576896376833

Airball went through more than 10 bullets on his way to losing over half a million. Dwan would go on to win $160,000 for the stream, but Anthony was the biggest winner at just over $400,000. The action will resume Wednesday night with more high-stakes pot-limit Omaha.

The Asian Poker Tour has gone from strength to strength in the last year. Most of the big Main Events show year-on-year growth in attendance and prize pools compared to June 2021- June 2022. As if to underline this growth, an event in Taipei this May event managed to set several all-time records for the series.

This impressive growth is due in no small part to the new management. In June 2022, APT Events Private Limited bought out the APT brand, taking over the operation and ownership of the tour from the Asianlogic Group.

Since the takeover, the tour has moved from strength to strength, with bigger and better events and a sponsorship deal with Natural8.

Asian Poker Tour By The Numbers

A direct comparison between the 2022 APT Summer Festival Hanoi (held in mid-July 2022) and the 2023 APT Summer Series Hanoi (late May-early June 2023) nicely illustrates the change.

The 2022 Summer Festival Main Event had 487 entries compared to 2023’s 581 entries. This is even more notable when you also factor in that the buy-in amount increased from ₫22,000,000 ($931) in 2022 to ₫35,000,000 ($1,480) in 2023.

Even the APT Phu Quoc Main Event, which doubled its buy-in from ₫16.5 million ($698) in 2022 to ₫33.0 million ($1,396) in 2023, managed to retain 75% of its field size despite the 100% increase in cost. The drop from 378 entries in 2022 to 284 entries in 2023 was comfortably covered by higher buy-in. As a result, the prize pool for the APT Phu Quoc Main Event swelled from ₫5,499,900,000 ($240,377) in 2022 to ₫8,520,000,000 ($360,406) in 2023.

However, perhaps the biggest showcase of the APT’s growth is undoubtedly the 2023 APT Taipei Main Event won by Punnat Punsri. This event was not just substantially bigger than any previous APT event held in Taiwan. It also set new records for the biggest APT field ever with 1,434 entries and the biggest APT prize pool ever of NT$62,594,100 (US$2,013,332).

With two more big stops coming up in the next few months of the APT, the tour is hoping to maintain its upward trajectory through the summer.

Upcoming APT Da Nang and APT Incheon

APT management has high hopes for the upcoming APT legs in Da Nang, Vietnam, and Incheon, South Korea.

The APT Summer Series Da Nang runs from July 21-30 and crams 57 events into ten days at the beachside Furama Resort. The series will have a strong mixed game focus with 57 events running in games as diverse as Big O (i.e., five-card pot-limit Omaha hi-lo), H.O.R.S.E, deuces wild hold’em, triple stud (rotating razz, stud hi, and stud hi-lo), no limit double-board single-winner hold’em, and deuce-to-seven lowball single draw.

There will still be plenty of action for more traditional hold’em heads, though, with plenty of side events leading up to a ₫35,000,000 (~$1,500) buy-in Main Event with a ₫12,000,000,000 (~USD $500,000) guarantee.

https://twitter.com/AsianPokerTour/status/1671456072354402304

The APT Summer Series Da Nang is then followed up by the APT Incheon starting on August 25 and running until September 5. As a result of the bigger schedule and increasing popularity of the series, the APT claims to be planning around the APT Incheon being three times bigger than the 2022 edition, which had just 21 events.

This year’s APT Incheon series will crown another 57 trophy-event winners in nine variants of poker and a further nine variants just of hold’em. Naturally, the ₩2,300,000 (~$1,700) NLH Main Event will be the highlight of this massive schedule and has a guarantee of ₩1,300,000,000 (~USD $1,000,000).

If you want to play either of these events, the APT has partnered with Natural8 to run a series of Mega & Step Satellites to both of these series.

https://twitter.com/AsianPokerTour/status/1676804195306057728

The 2023-24 English Premier League season is upon us, and while the 20 teams are making final preparations for the upcoming campaign, wannabe football managers are putting the finishing touches to their fantasy football squads. You could potentially miss out on a bumper payday if you play fantasy football anywhere other than bet365.

Bet365 loves football, particularly fantasy football, so has decided to run a season-long competition where a £500,000 prize pool is up for grabs. As if playing for your share of half a million pounds was not enough to entice you to the bet365 site, the sports betting giant is running the competition for free! That’s correct, you can play in the bet365 Fantasy Game for nothing; you only need a real money bet365 account.

What are the bet365 Fantasy Game Rules?

Every Fantasy Game player is given a budget of 100 million and must select a squad of 15 players without going over budget. You may select up to three players from the same team, and those players earn you points based on their real-life performances throughout the 2023-24 Premier League season.

Your starting XI must contain at last three defenders, and no more than three forwards. In addition, your substitute’s bench must have one reserve goalkeeper and three reserve outfield players. These players automatically substitute for your first team players if they do not play any part of their game that week, doing so in the order they appear on your bench.

Each week, you select one player to be your captain, with that player scoring double points, and a vice captain who also earns double points, but only if your captain does not play.

Bet365 grants you one free transfer per gameweek, with additional transfers costing your team four points. However, you can save up your free transfers for future weeks, if you wish.

How to Earn Fantasy Game Points

There are two dozen ways you chosen players can earn or lose points for your team. These points are awarded based on their actions in real-life Premier League games. They earn you points for playing in a game, by having shots on target, assisting and scoring goals, but lose points for scoring own goals, conceding goals, receiving yellow or red cards, or key fouls.

What Can I Win From the bet365 Fantasy Game?

Currently, the plan is to award the free £500,000 prize pool to the top 10,000 points earners across the 38-game season. The first rung on the payment ladder awards £10, but anyone finishing in the top 1,000 places receives at least £100.

The Pep Guardiolas among you who reach the top 50 can look forward to a £1,000 prize, with everyone in the top 10 capturing a £5,000 score. Be the competition’s champion, however, and you will see your bet365 account credited with a whopping £50,000!

Start Your Bet365 Career With £30 in Free Bets

New Bet365 customers can enjoy up to £30 of free bets (or equivalent currency) when they make their first deposit at the site. Your first deposit of between £5 and £10 is multiplied by three in the form of Bet Credits. You can find all the free bets bonus terms and conditions on the Bet365 website.

It was easy to forget that the online poker world still existed, with the record-breaking 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP) grabbing the attention of the poker community. But, alas, it continued existing, and thousands of low-to-mid-stakes PartyPoker players took to the virtual felt and made the Grand Prix Summer series a roaring success.

Featuring 12 numbered events and dozens more size events, the PartyPoker Grand Prix Summer Festival gave players the chance to turn a small investment into a bankroll-boosting score, all while enjoying blind structures that are only usually seen in tournaments costing five-to-ten times as much.

All 12 of those numbered events proved popular, and the prize pool in each surpassed their advertised guarantees, including the $55 buy-in $150,000 guaranteed Main Event.

Unlike several of PartyPoker’s previous Main Events, the Grand Prix Summer Main Event was played as a traditional No-Limit Hold’em tournament instead of a progressive knockout event. The change was welcomed, with 3,248 players buying in across several flights, and creating a $162,400 prize pool that the 476 Day 2 players shared.

Nobody at the final table could take home less than $1,785 for their efforts, which was the sum “Gunnar1” took home after crashing out in ninth place.

“iBaNNka” collected $2,301 for their eighth-place finish, while “Dallastra” and “Puck_” got their hands on hauls weighing in at $2,892 and $3,738, respectively when their impressive deep runs ended prematurely.

Fifth place and $4,957 went to “PokerPbast33” before the exit of “vovko” in fourth, worth $7,305, locked in a five-figure score for the three remaining players, a superb result for a $55 initial investment.

PartyPoker Live Releases Schedule For All New Grand Prix Bratislava

The heads-up stage was reached when “Xinelo” bowed out in third, a finish good for $11,035. “Bait_Over_Bait” and “ElMaquinista” contested the one-on-one for the lion’s share of the guarantee-busting prize pool.

Both players agreed to a deal early into the heads-up match, with “ElMaquinista” officially finishing in second place for $19,955, and “Bait_Over_Bait” receiving $20,156 and the title of Grand Prix Summer Main Event champion.

Grand Prix Summer #04 Main Event Final Table Results

*reflects a heads-up deal

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Full Results From Grand Prix Summer Numbered Events

Both the Mini and Micro Main Events also destroyed their guarantees, with the $5.50 edition paying out $47,810 ($40,000 guaranteed) and the $2.20 Micro awarding $7,412 ($5,000 guaranteed).

A special mention must go to “LadyOnTilt” who showed their prowess in the lower stakes events during the series. They triumphed in the $1.10 Micro Opener PKO for $266 before finishing eighth in the $2.20 Micro Main Event for an additional $103.

*includes bounty payments

What’s Up Next at PartyPoker?

PartyPoker’s attention is firmly on the first leg of its new 2023 PartyPoker LIVE tour, which commenced in Slovakia on July 18. The Grand prix Bratislava Festival runs from July 18 through July 23, and features a €550 buy-in Main Event that has a€500,000 guarantee on its prize pool.

PartyPoker Launches Round the Clock Freerolls; Gives Away $2,500 Daily!

If you cannot make it out to Slovakia, there is plenty to keep you interested in the online poker world. Those on a budget should check out the Round the Clock freerolls and the PokerNews-exclusive freerolls, while sports bettors should make a beeline to the Thursday Night Sports Tournament.

Check Out PartyPoker Tournaments On The PokerNews Online Tournament Calendar

If you need some help keeping track of the Grand Prix Summer tournaments and any other events on PartyPoker, you can use the newly launched PokerNews Online Tournament Calendar. This free-to-use tool shows you what tournaments are available to play and allows you to register for them without leaving the PokerNews website!

Join PartyPoker Now And Earn A Welcome Bonus

If you want to join the action on PartyPoker you can Download PartyPoker via PokerNews to get a 100% matched deposit bonus of up to $600, plus up to $30 worth of free play.

The minimum deposit of $10 deposit nets you $10 worth of tickets over the course of a week, as follows:

• Day 1: 2x $1 SPINS tickets + 1x $5.50 MTT ticket
• Day 2: 4x $0.25 SPINS tickets
• Day 4: 1x $3.30 MTT ticket
• Day 6: 4x $0.25 SPINS tickets

However, if you deposit $20 or more your ticket rewards increase to:

• Day 1: 1x $5.30 MTT ticket
• Day 2: 2x $1 SPINS ticket
• Day 3: 1x $5.50 MTT ticket
• Day 4: 1x $5.50 MTT ticket
• Day 5: 3x $2.20 MTT tickets
• Day 6: 2x $3 SPINS tickets + 1x$3.30 MTT ticket

Players who are residents in the United Kingdom receive a different PartyPoker welcome bonus. For these players, a £10 or more deposit nets a 100% matched deposit bonus of up to £400, plus £40 worth of Party Dollars, which can be used in any of the site’s games.

To release the deposit bonus, you must meet playthrough requirements by earning four times the deposit bonus amount in loyalty points. The deposit bonus is cleared in 10% increments and has an expiry date. Check out the terms and conditions on the PartyPoker website for full details.

On the final day of the 2023 World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas, tables had been rolled away, chairs were stacked throughout the room, and the sound of chips riffling had ceased… that is, all except for one table. In the corner of a now mostly empty and quiet room, there was still one winner left to determined and one bracelet left to be awarded.

This year, that last and lonely table was the final of Event #95: $1,000 Super Turbo No-Limit Hold’em. This one-day event is a fitting way to close out the summer because it was non-stop action from the onset to the final card. After starting with 1,482 and creating a $1,318,980 prize pool, a winner was crowned in just about 12 total hours of play.

Taking home the final WSOP bracelet handed out this summer along with the first-place prize of $212,645 was Paul Berger, the only player whose rollercoaster ride of a day ended in the way they’d hoped when the first cards were dealt.

Players who ran deep but fell short of their ultimate goal included John Juanda (95th – $2,316), Jen Harman (88th – $2,546), Daniel Negreanu (80th – $2,838), Jesse Sylvia (64th – $3,208), Ben Yu (45th – $4,271), Eric Froehlich (43rd – $5,028), Bryan Piccioli (11th – $13,812) and Gabriel Schroeder (10th – $13,812).

Final Table Payouts

Final Table Action

When the final table was reached, the average stack was quite shallow, and because of that, the short stacks were very short. This proved to help action keep up the fast-paced theme of the day with a very quick elimination when Tai Cao shoved for less than five blinds from the small blind and couldn’t improve when called.

Alex Zhang busted less than 10 minutes later when his final table appearance was cut short holding aces that shrunk when his opponent rivered trip tens.

Hon Cheong Lee fell just an orbit later when he lost a flip to Dzivielevski after getting in his less than 10 blind stack before the flop.

Kafton Ramsamooj followed behind in the next level when he was forced all in from the big blind and again, it was Plante helping to pack his bags as Ramsamooj couldn’t improve to extend his stay at the final table.

At this pace, one player was being eliminated each level, and that trend continued when Michael Liang fell in what was a rollercoaster of a hand that had the now very quiet and empty Horseshoe event center room filled with screams from the rail as the lead changed back and forth in the hand with Liang ultimately finishing second best and being sent to the exit.

Miguel Cardoso hit the rail just five short minutes later when he got his chips in good versus Dzivielevski but couldn’t hold to keep the bracelet dream alive.

After being the executioner for so many of the most recent bust-outs at the final table, Santiago Plante ended up being next to find himself void of chips, and he made way for the heads up battle when he got his stack in with a dominating hand but was drawn out when the river completed the wheel for Berger.

Heads up between Dzivielevski and Berger got underway with the pair almost dead even chip stacks, and the lead changed hands multiple times. Before the final hand, Berger won the last of the chip lead swinging pots when he made a small flush to win a decent sized pot from Dzivielevski. On the very next hand, Dzivielevski shoved the button and got called but couldn’t catch what he needed to secure his second bracelet of the summer.

Winner’s Reaction

Berger is a Las Vegas local who only plays poker in Las Vegas. In a crazy twist to his story, he only came to the casino this morning to close out the remaining money in his account because the series was ending, and happened to notice that a single-day turbo was running. He hadn’t planned to play, but when he saw that it was a one-day event, he decided to hop in, and a half a day later, he was sitting for the winner’s photos and hoisting the bracelet above his head.

When asked if the bracelet had any special meaning to him as he put the last one of the summer into his backpack, he did say that the bracelet was very cool but that “the money is more important because I donate it, so the fact that I’ve got the biggest score of my life and it’ll go to a good cause is very cool.”

Having beaten such a well-respected and accomplished player in Dzivielevski certainly takes a back seat to the accomplishment when you consider that the majority of this money will go to an orphanage in Nepal and the rest of it is undecided at this moment, but every bit will go to helping those less fortunate than himself which is an amazing way to cap off the summer for anyone.

When asked if he had any parting words for the thousands of players that came out to the desert this year and chased the dream that he had just achieved, he let out a big laugh and jokingly said, “Better luck next year.”

With that, the final bracelet of the 2023 World Series of Poker has been awarded, and the 2023 WSOP has officially come to a close. The annual poker summer camp that so many of us wait all year for was somehow bigger and brighter than ever before, and in a summer that was fueled by the hopes and dreams of so many players and poker enthusiasts from around the world, it’s safe to say that all over the world, there are thousands of people looking forward to heading back to the desert to chase gold in 2024.

As always, stay tuned to PokerNews year-round for up-to-date coverage of all the biggest poker tournaments and poker news stories that the year has to offer!

The 2023 World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas concluded on July 18, the 50th day of a record-breaking summer. Four events were required to award their bracelets before the WSOP staff could dismantle the mothership, store away the tables, chairs, and chips, and the last person out could turn off the lights.

Event #91: $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. was one of those four remaining events. Originally scheduled to be a three-day event, Day 3 ended with Ryan Miller heads-up against Leonard August. The heads-up duo returned to the action at 2:00 p.m. local time, and it took less than one level of one-on-one action for Miller to get the job done and capture his second bracelet of the summer.

Online Short Deck specialist Martin Nielsen triumphed in Event #93: $10,000 Short Deck Championship after overcoming a star-studded field of 106 entrants. All eyes were on John Juanda at the start of Day 3 because he had the opportunity to join Josh Arieh and Phil Hellmuth as the only players to win a bracelet at Binion’s, the Rio, and Horseshoe. However, Juanda sat down as the short stack and was the first player out of the door.

Nielsen, who hails from the Faroe Islands, and the $270,160 he collected propelled him to the top of his country’s all-time money list.

The third tournament that dished out some poker god was Event #94: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (8-Handed). Alex Keating came out on top for a career-best $701,688 and his first WSOP hardware. Keating has WSOP cashes dating back to 2009, so getting his hands on a bracelet has been a long time coming. No doubt the California native will cherish his impressive victory forever.

Event #95: $1,000 Super Turbo No-Limit Hold’em was the last event of the summer, and it was a stacked field considering the timing of the tournament and the buy-in being at the more affordable end of the scale.

It took thirty-eight 20-minute levels to reduce the 1,486 entrants to a champion, with Paul Berger being the last man standing. Berger did not plan to play any more poker this summer and was only at the casino to withdraw the money left in his account, but saw that a one-day turbo was running, so he hopped in. It turned out to be a superb decision because he not only captured his first bracelet, but Berger donates his winnings to charity, so the $212,645 top prize will go some way to helping those less fortunate than he.

That concludes PokerNews‘ coverage of the 2023 WSOP; what a summer it has been. We would like to thank each and every PokerNews reader for tuning into our live reporting pages.

Don’t worry if you are anxious about where you will get your next live updates fix because our team is heading to APPT Manila, 888poker LIVE Bucharest, and the PokerStars EPT Barcelona festival during August!

The curtain has closed on Event $94: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em at the 2023 World Series of Poker at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.

The penultimate event of the series saw 813 players pony up the money for a shot at WSOP glory – a huge increase of last year’s figure of 573. After two days of battle at the baize, it was Alex Keating who prevailed, claiming his first WSOP bracelet, having first cashed in a WSOP event in 2009.

Final Table Results

With many of the summer’s recreational players already on their way home, the event was stacked with big-name pros. Viktor Blom, Alex Foxen, Alex Livingston, David Peters, and Phil Laak were just a few of poker’s elite who tried but ultimately failed to add to their resume.

Day 2 Action

When the remaining players returned this afternoon, Peters was sitting at the head of the pack. But he was unable to parlay yesterday’s run into a win, eventually falling in 20th place.

Pat Lyons briefly looked like he was making a run at the top spot when his rivered trips catapulted him into the chip lead with just two tables remaining. But that hand marked the end of his run-good and his chip count quickly went south, leaving him to finish in 15th place.

Thai crusher Punnat Punsri finished on the final table bubble when he ran into Nozomu Shimizu’s pocket Jacks.

Final Table Action

By the time the tournament got nine-handed, Keating and Shimizu were putting a stranglehold on the opposition and looked the most likely to be duking it out for the bracelet.

Massoud Eskandari was the first to bust the single-table stage, his ace-jack no match for Marcello Delgrosso’s ace-king.

Jason Hickey was next to go after getting his short stack in against Nozomu Shimizu.

Christian Harder fell shortly afterward – his pocket sevens unable to hold versus Josh Reichard’s king-nine.

It would be Josh Reichard to go next though, Shimizu claiming another victim at the final table.

Alexandros Kolonias followed shortly after, when Keating hit a miracle river.

And Keating did for Marcello Delgrosso in fourth, with another fortunate run-out.

Shimizu, who had provided plenty of entertainment, exited in third, unable to overcome Wei’s pocket eights. Shimizu’s third finish in third this summer left Keating and Wei heads up.

Winner’s Reaction

Asked how he felt in the moment of victory, Keating simply said, “Good… yeah, not bad actually”, before adding, “I’m thinking about what I’m supposed to do right now”.

Reflecting on an earlier bad beat, when his aces were cracked by Lyons’ ace-queen, Keating said, “Usually, I’d be really upset there but for some reason this tournament had a casual vibe to it and I was just like ok…”

“For how huge of a pot that was, I was still third or fourth in chips.”

Keating who, by his own admission, had gone “zero for forty” during the series, said his celebration will entail some first-class flights to a friend’s wedding: “I wasn’t planning on drinking on it, but I guess… y’know – they bring you caviar and champagne. That’s going to be my way of celebrating.”

There were five players who returned for the final day of Event #97: $10,000 Short Deck No-Limit Hold’em at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas and it was the start-of-day chip leader Martin Nielsen who walked away with his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet along with $270,160.

Nielsen overcame a star-studded field of 106 entries, which generated a prize pool of $895,300 in one of the last high-roller events of the series. Although he came back to Day 3 as the chip leader, it wasn’t a cakewalk for the Faroe Islands Native as he sat down with some of the best players in the world, including poker Hall of Famer and legend John Juanda. In the end, It came down to a heads-up battle between Nielsen and Hong Wei Yu, and the short-deck specialist found a way to come out on top.

“It’s so weird, though, I thought I would be nervous,” Nielsen said after his victory, “I don’t know, I am a full-time short-deck cash player, but I mostly play online on GG.”

The craziest part is this is only his second cash of the series, with his first coming from a min-cash in a $200 Daily Deepstack for $403. When asked what made him register in this high roller, he simply said, “Well I am a short deck player, so this was my most important tournament of the summer, the $200 was just for fun.” With this win, this jumps his Hendon Mob live earnings to $300,000, which he says will be the biggest from his home country.

Final Table Results

Day 3 Action

There were five players that returned to the felt at 1 p.m. local time and after a small delay, the cards were in the air. The players waited for him to arrive after pitching the cards on the first hand but it didn’t take long after that for the chips to start flying.

Early in the day, Juanda moved all in preflop with queen-ten of hearts and was called by Eric Wasserson with ace-king of diamonds to put him at risk. Wasserson flopped a king and held to eliminate Juanda in 5th place.

After that, the action slowed way down as the players were so deep, with the average stack well over 100 antes for most of the day. Wasserson looked like he was making a run when he became chip leader after winning a big pot against Nielsen but then two hands later lost a big cooler to Ivan Ermin to double him up.

Wasserson then lost most of his stack in a huge pot against Nielsen when he flopped a set of eights on an eight-queen-ace board against the ace-nine of Nielsen. Wasserson almost had him drawing dead but Nielsen hit a miracle runout of seven-six to hit a straight on the river. Soon after that, Wasserson moved all in with king-nine suited and was called by Ermin with king-queen. Wasserson turned a pair of nines to take the lead but Ermin hit a gutshot straight on the river to take the pot and sent Wasserson out in fourth place.

After his exit, it was two full levels before Ermin was sent home in 3rd after getting it in preflop with jack-ten suited against the ace-queen of Nielsen. The flop of ten-eight-queen gave Ermin the lead with a pair of tens but the king-jack runout gave Nielsen a straight on the river to send him out in third.

After this pot, Nielsen came into heads-up play against Yu with a dominating 3:1 chip lead. It only took around 15 minutes of play before the two managed to get it all in the middle with Yu holding jack-ten of spades versus the pocket kings of Nielsen. The queen-eight-six-ten turn with two spades gave Yu a ton of outs to hit, but the blank ten on the river did not do it and he was eliminated as the runner-up while Nielsen was crowned champion and adorned with the gold bracelet.

That wraps up the coverage for this event, and although this was one of the last events, keep an eye on PokerNews for the recap on the $5,000 6-max as well as the last updates on the $1,000 Super Turbo. Have a great summer, and catch more action on the felt real soon!