Scott Seiver navigated a tough final table and a stacked final day to win 2024 WSOP Event #72 $10,000 NL 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship (7-Handed) for $411,041. The victory marked his third bracelet win this summer, and he moved into the exclusive Seven Timer's Club with bracelet #7. Meanwhile, France's Elie Nakache took down Event #66 $10,000 PLO Championship for a $1.3 million score when he outlasted 726 runners.
Ship it Scott Seiver… again! The Seven Timer's Club, or Lucky Sevens (which I made up), added one more member to a truly exclusive crew of WSOP bracelet winners. It's been a busy year for the Sevens. Before the summer started, only two players were in the squad with Billy Baxter and Men the Master tied at seven bracelets. Baxter reached seven in 2002 just before the online poker boom burst, but Men the Master added two since then with his last in 2010. This summer has now seen Johnny World Hennigan become the ninth member, and Daniel Negreanu finally ended a drought to become the tenth member. But less than a week after Kid Poker's momentous victory, Scott Seiver joined the Lucky Sevens club. A dozen players, including Ausmus, are currently tied with six bracelets.
It's been a heck of a summer for Seiver, and an even better June, as he rocketed to the top of the WSOP POY standings. He won his fifth bracelet at the start of the month with a victory in Event #10 $10K Omaha 8 Championship. He added a second bracelet, and his sixth overall, with a win in Event #40 in the always tough $1,500 Razz field. He snagged #7 as the last player standing in $10K NL Deuce to Seven Lowball. He's now cashed in nine events, and his trio of bracelet victories resulted in nearly $980K in winnings. With his other cashes he pushed past the seven-figure mark this summer.
With three bracelets this summer, Seiver is only the seventh player in history to win three in the same year. He joins the triple bling crew with Puggy Pearson (1973), Phil Hellmuth (1993), Ted Forrest (1993), Phil Ivey (2202), Jeff Lisandro (2009), and George Danzer (2014). Danzer won three bracelets in the entire 2014 season, but only two were in Las Vegas at the Rio that summer. Lisandro was the last player to ship three bracelets in Las Vegas back in 2009.
Okay, so let's get down to the nitty gritty. Event #72 $10,000 NL 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship (7-Handed) attracted 186 entriesand a prize pool worth almost $1.73 million. Only the top 28 places were paid out with $411K set aside to the champ. Among the noteworthy players who went deep and cashed included the legendary Billy Baxter, Galen Hall, Naoya Kihara, Dan Smith, Dan Shak, Frederic Breton, Yuri Dzivielevski, Paul Volpe, Shaun Deeb, Max Kruse, Mike Matusow, Ben Yu, Michael Rocco, and Nick Schulman.
David Lin bagged the chip lead heading into the final day of action and Mike Watson was not far behind in second. Jeremy Ausmus and Scott Seiver were also among the bigger stacks. Also still alive were Jonathan Krela, Robert Mizrachi, Jason Mercier, Jen Harman, and Aaron Kupin.
Harman doesn't play many events these days, but made the most of her rare appearance with a seat at the final table. Mike Watson bowed out in sixth place, followed by Harman in fifth place. Jeremy Ausmus hit the bricks in fourth place which paid out $130K.
Ausmus battled Seiver for the top spot in the POY race, but he was also attempting to join the Lucky Sevens. He cashed in 12 events this summer with six final tables. Chris Hunichen edged out Ausmus in the $100,000 High Roller when he took second place. Ausmus took third place in Event #34 $2,500 NLHE Freezeout.
David Lin entered the final day as the chip leader, but he met his fate in third place. With his elimination, a heads-up finale was set between Canada's Jonathan Krela and Seiver. Krela was sort of the unknown from Thunder Bay, but he made a name for himself with a deep run and had a chance to win his first bracelet. Alas, Krela could not pull off a comeback and Seiver picked him off in second place. Krela banked $274K for a runner-up finish. Not too shabby, eh?
Seiver won $411K for first place in the $10K NL Deuce to Seven Lowball Championship. He began this summer with four bracelets, and now has seven. He's won five different formats: LHE, NLHE, Razz, Omaha 8, and now NL 2-7 Lowball. He claimed a pair of Razz bracelets and two in NLHE including a freezeout.
Seiver became the eleventh player to win seven bracelets, and he's one of five players tied with #7 including Baxter, Men the Master, Johnny World, and Negreanu. Only six players won more bling that Seiver: Phil Hellmuth (17), Phil Ivey (11), Johnny Chan (10), Doyle Brunson (10), Erik Seidel (10), and Johnny Moss (9).
In other WSOP news...
Event #66 $10,000 PLO Championship attracted 726 runners and a prize pool worth $8.75 million. The top 122 places paid out with over $1.32 million set aside to the champion. Six different countries were represented among the final eight including David Benyamine and Elie Nakache from France. Also among the final eight were Josh Adkins, Manh Nguyen, Jonathan Bowers, Oshri Lahmani, Krzysztof Magott, and Eelis Parssinen.
Benyamine busted in eight place, but France still claimed the victory when Nakache edged out Adkins for the $10K PLO bracelet. Nakache won $1.32 million for first place and Adkins snagged $880K for a runner-up finish. Not too shabby, eh? Also going deep in Event #66 included Bruno Fitoussi, Sonny Franco, Stephen Chidwick, Noah Boeken, Niklas Astedt, Felipe Ramos, The Grinder, Jim Collopy, Kahle Burns, Wook Kim, Johnny World Hennigan, Marco Johnson, Joni Jouhkimainen, Benny Glaser, Rainer Kempe, and Naoya Kihara.
Event #67 $500 SALUTE to Warriors attracted 4,517 entrants to this special event. The prize pool exceeded $1.85 million. The top 678 places were paid out with $207K set aside to the winner. The U.K.'s Ben Collins outlasted this big field to win the bracelets. Collins survived a final table that also included Stavros Petychakis, Tolga Gesli, Paul Serrate, Rami Hammoud, Dane Harnett, Ben Snodgrass, Siavash Bahri, and Gerald Schnierer.
Event #68 $2,500 NLHE attracted 2,229 entrants and a prize pool that fell just short of $5 million. The top 335 places paid out with almost $668 set aside to first place. American Colin Robinson bagged his first bracelet with the victory in event #68. The final table also included Barry Shulman, Carl Shaw, John Reiter, Vitalijs Zavorotnijs, Akshat Bajaj, Peter Park, Gonzalo Almada, and Ivan Stankov.
Event #69 $1,500 Seven Card Stud 8 had a field of 611 entrants who generated a prize pool worth $815,685. The top 92 places paid out with the winner banking $153,730. The bracelet was a heads-up battle between Russia and Venezuela, but when the dust settled Nikolay Fal edged out Christian Roberts for the bling. The final nine also included Jon Turner, Yuval Bronshtein, Joseph Hertzog, Kenneth Kemple, Dekel Balas, Nikolay Ponomarev, and Joey Couden.
WSOP All-Time Bracelet Winners (Top 11)
17 - Phill Hellmuth
11 - Phil Ivey
10 - Johnny Chan
10 - Doyle Brunson
10 - Erik Seidel
9 - Johnny Moss
7- Billy Baxter
7 - Men Nguyen
7 - Johnny "World" Hennigan
7 - Daniel Negreanu
7 - Scott Seiver
