The 2019 WSOP is underway with three more bracelet winners after the opening weekend of action. Nicholas Haynes, a dealer at the Aria, won Event #1 $500 Casino Employee Event for $62,345. Derek McMaster won Event #4 $1,500 Omaha 8 for a $228K score. Yong 'LuckySpewy1' Kwon won the first online event of the summer with a victory in Event #7 $400 Online NL that included a final table featuring Phil Hellmuth.

The 2019 WSOP completed its first weekend of action and nether Phil Hellmuth, nor Daniel Negreanu won bracelets despite making final table appearances. Instead, Yong 'LuckySpewy1' Kwon and Derek McMaster won their first bracelets. And in the opening event, the annual Casino Employee Event, a dealer from the Aria named Nicholas Haynes took down the first non-open event of the year.
Event #1 $500 Casino Employees attracted 685 entrants and a prize pool worth a shade under $300K. The top 103 places paid out. Notables who cashed included James Obst, Vladimir Shchemelev, Steven Wolansky, Julien Martini, ODB Baker, Amanda Wheeler, Jon Friedberg, and Dan Goldman.
Nicholas Haynes, a poker dealer from the Aria Casino in Vegas (and originally from Michigan), outlasted a final table that included Isaac Hanson, Jorge Ruiz, Jesse Kertland, Adam Lamers, Jeffrey Fast, Christopher Bowen, Joseph Appler, and Travis Williams. Haynes defeated WSOP Media Relations Isaac Hanson heads-up for the bling. Hanson banked $38,447 for second place. Not too shabby, eh? Haynes took home $62K.
2019 WSOP Event #4 $1,500 Omaha 8 attracted 853 runners. Only the top 128 places paid out of that one with a prize pool worth $1.1 million. The final table included on Brit and eight Americans with Newcastle's Patrick Leonard, Shannon Shorr, Ben Yu, Tom McCormick, David Halpern, John Esposito, Joe Aronesty, Jason Berilgen, and Derek McMaster.
The token Brit, Leonard, hit the bricks in ninth place. Shannon Shorr's deep run ended in eighth place. Ben Yu made another WSOP final table but he didn't win another bracelet. He busted in seventh place.
Jason Berilgen lost heads-up to former pool pro Derek McMaster. Jason Berilgen banked $141K for second place, while McMaster waltzed into the winner's circle. McMaster took home $228,228 back to Minnesota.
Notables who cashed in Event #4 $1,500 Omaha 8 included... Mike Matusow, Sampo Ryynanen, Jeff Madsen, Kathy Chang, Jason Stockfish, Andy Berber, John Monnette, Paul-Francois Tedeschi, Chip Jett, David Bach, David Moscowitz, Scott Brooks, David Benyamine, Felipe Duarte, Spencer Chen, Yuval Bronshtein, Dan Heimiller, James Woods, Roland Israelshvili, David Kops, Marco Johnson, Ismael Bojang, and Dekel Balas.
Meanwhile, the WSOP is hosting a bunch of Online Bracelet Events this year with the bulk of them running on Sundays. The first Sunday of the WSOP included a $400 NL bracelet event.
Yong 'LuckySpewy1' Kwon banked $165,263 for winning the first online bling event. 2019 WSOP Event #7 $400 NL ONLINE attracted 2,825 runners and a prize pool worth $1,017,000.
Kwon outlasted a final table that included Gabor "MeatisMurder" Szabo, Scott "merrick" Eskenazi, Frederic "LeakStain" Roetker, Phil "lumestackin" Hellmuth, Phillip "DjPhiLWiLL" Raetz, Dan "MeatJustice" O'Brien, Steve "FlatcallSPC" Cicak, and Samuel "Roopert" Uhlmann. Dan O'Brien finished in seventh place. Hellmuth did not win another bracelet but his deep run ended in fifth place.
Yong 'LuckySpewy1' Kwon defeated Gabor 'MeatisMurder' Szabo heads-up for the win. MeatisMurder banked $99K for second place, while Kwon went on to win $165K. That buy's a lot of In-N-Out Burger, eh?
2019 WSOP - Event #4 $1,500 Omaha 8
Entrants: 853
Prize Pool: $1,151,550
Payouts: 128
1. Derek McMaster (USA) $228,228
2. Jason Berilgen (USA) $141,007
3. John Esposito (USA) $98,807
4. David Halpern (USA) $70,231
5. Joe Aronesty (USA) $50,646
6. Tom McCormick (USA) $37,063
7. Ben Yu (USA) $27,530
8. Shannon Shorr (USA) $20,760
9. Patrick Leonard (UK) $15,897