It might have been over 10 years since Dan Heimiller won his last WSOP bracelet, but he has hardly been sitting back from the felt after claiming victory in the $1,000 Seniors Championship in 2014.
Sort his tournament winnings on The Hendon Mob by ‘place’ and you’re at risk of RSI scrolling out of the final table results. To say he is persistent is an understatement; he might describe this attribute less flatteringly as ‘stubbornness’ but his win proves that sticking at it pays off in the end.
Heimiller saw off two other triply braceleted opponents on the $1,500 Seven Card Stud final table: Greg Mueller (8th) and another formidable all-rounder David Bach heads up. Bach seems to have cashed in tournaments in every variant poker has to offer, but this seven card stud title goes to Heimiller, who’s already ticked off his ‘cash in the WSOP this year’ box – like he has for the past 25 years.
Heimiller adds the $106,840 in prize money to his over $7.8 million in winnings, having seen off the rest of the 377-strong field. Among notables making the money were bracelet winners Joey Couden (10th), Max Pescatori (14th), Michael Noori (16th) and hall-of-famer Brian Rast (min-cashing in 48th).
Galiana going for a third of his own
Spanish player Antonio Galiana has claimed his second WSOP bracelet and $582,008 in Event #3: $5,000 8-Handed NLH. You might remember him from such moves as last year’s heads up ‘bluff of the century’ against Johan Guilbert; if nearly eight minutes hits the video equivalent of tl;dr, a five-flushing board’s action goes check-check, check-check, FIREWORKS, with neither player holding a card of the relevant suit.
Galiana proved that his gears were still functioning with his second title in as many years. He could even speed up from his one-bracelet-a-year rate, and certainly plans on trying, saying, “From the first day to the last day. I'm going for the third.” Speaking of speeding up, there were some complaints from viewers about the pace of play on the livestreamed final, with tanking rampant.
Galiana (second from left) on his way to his second bracelet.The 693-entry event had a 5-Max final day, with fantasy players taking up two of the seats. Though Christian Roberts started the day as chip leader, he ended up taking third for $270,407, while Renji Mao finished fourth. Overall, the deep stages of this tournament were overrun with fantasy cashers, boding well for a competitive race at this year’s Series.
In more fantasy bracelet-chasing news, half of the semi-finalists in the $25K Heads-Up Championship are giving their teams a sweat – and they’re playing each other. Patrick Leonard will take on Artur Martirosian in the penultimate round (the winner playing that of the match-up between Aliaksei Boika and David Chen). Guaranteed at least $180,000, the champion will take home $500,000.
Caleb ‘Bruno’ Furth overcomes 757 opponents (and frustration at Kabrhel) to win $5K PLO
After the fracas involving Shaun Deeb and Nick Schulman yesterday, Martin Kabrhel continued to push his tablemates to the breaking point – or at least the point where they called the clock on him – repeating his behavior right up until his elimination in third place, when he suddenly found the gas pedal and left the room like an Olympic speed walker.
Kabrhel, notable for this event's slow action and fast exit.Champion Furth admitted that Kabrhel’s slowing of the action did eventually get under his skin but possibly shouldn’t have done so. Someone that generates dozens of time-wasting complaints in one event might generate a few more if they think it's putting others off their game. In any case, Furth busted his tormentor and then his final opponent, PLO specialist Fabian Riebau-Schmithals, who at one point on the final table had seemed virtually unstoppable on his run to the title.
Furth’s top prize of $620,696 represents his biggest live cash to date, his previous being the $265,361 he claimed along with his PLO hi-lo WSOP title last year.
Furth place: Caleb shows off his latest bling.Remember Event #1? This monster is finally heading to Day 2
The $1,000 Mystery Millions has broken last year’s entry record, racking up 8,118 entries in Day 1E alone. Overall, it has brought in 19,654 entrants (some of them multiple times) to best last year’s total of 18,049.
The WSOP+ app shows the total prize pool as $18,003,064, with its breakdown yet to be announced. Rumor has it that the million-dollar bounty may even have a twin this year…
Listen all y’all it’s a sabotage
Finally, may we draw your attention to Phil Hellmuth’s exclusive interview with PokerOrg, where he dissects the drama around his ‘manipulated’ will-he-won’t-he Main Event poll and his opinions on potential changes to the Main Event to counteract the effects of fatigue (or microdosing!).
Phil 'Highway to' Hellmuth.Additional image courtesy of WSOP.
