Congratulations to Brandon Wong, Winner of Event #50: $2,500 10-Game Mix (Six Handed) ($220,061)!
That's a wrap from the secondary feature stage! The 50th bracelet winner of the 2013 World Series of Poker been crowned. In the end, it was Brandon Wong who was able to plow through Sebastian Saffari during heads up play to grab hold of the title, the coveted gold bracelet, and the $220,061 in first-place money!
The day began with 20 hopefuls returning to the felt chasing the dream of becoming the next WSOP champion and earning their place in the history books. One by one, however, notable names and amateurs alike found themselves without chips and forced to wait until another day to slap the bracelet around their wrist. Players like Konstantin Puchkov (18th), Robert Williamson III (17th), Tom McCormick (14th), Bruno Fitoussi (13th), 2004 WSOP Main Event champion Greg Raymer (11th), Mike Wattel (10th), and Brian Tate (9th) all fell before the final table was reached.
The players combined at the final seven and took their seats at the secondary feature table in the Amazon room. The official final table was reached rather quickly as Daniel Makowsky was eliminated after a series of 2-7 triple draw hands gone awry.
The players took a break and returned to finish out the 2-7 triple draw orbit. It was in these few short hands that Loren Klein saw his tournament come to an end. Klein fell at the hands of start-of-day chip leader Scott Abrams when the latter made eighty-six on the third draw, leaving Klein drawing dead before even sweating his final card. The field then played five-handed for some time before action finally came to a head. Unfortunately for Abrams, he was the next to fall when he could not improve against during a preflop all in in pot-limit Omaha.
Christopher George fell shortly after Abrams, having a relatively poor stud-8 round that ended with him being slain by Wong. George's fourth-place finish left the remaining competitors in a three-handed spar that lasted for quite some time. Philip Sternheimer was the shortest stack of the three for quite some time and continued to drop in the counts as the match went on. Despite doubling in limit hold'em he was unable to gain any momentum and lost many of those chips a mere few hands later. Sternheimer finally saw his tournament come to an unfortunate end during a hand of Badugi against Wong. Sternheimer continued to push and stayed pat since the deal, but tabled a hand with two spades once all of the money went in. Regardless of his misread of his hand, Wong made a on the final draw to finally send Sternheimer packing.
The heads up match between Wong and Saffari was suddenly in motion and Wong had a slight chip lead heading into a round of stud. Wong shot out of the gate and never looked back, winning two key stud hands that propelled him into a dominating chip advantage. The two continued to clash with Wong more often than not coming out on top. The match finally saw its end when a severely short-stacked Saffari shipped all in from the button in no-limit hold'em. Wong snapped him off and tabled two red aces - an absolute domination of Saffari's . Despite picking up an open-ended straight draw on the turn, Saffari did not improve and Wong became the latest champion of the 2013 WSOP.
Final Table Payouts
Place | Player | Country | Prize |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Brandon Wong | USA | $220,061 |
2 | Sebastian Saffari | UK | $135,932 |
3 | Philip Sternheimer | UK | $87,397 |
4 | Christopher George | USA | $57,954 |
5 | Scott Abrams | USA | $39,564 |
6 | Loren Klein | USA | $27,792 |
Here at PokerNews we extend our deepest congratulations to Wong for mastering versatility of play over ten different poker variants and conquering a stack field to win one of the most coveted bracelets of the 2013 WSOP. That does it for our coverage of Event #50, but that doesn't mean we're done! Be sure to check out the Live Reporting page for live updates for all of the remaining tournaments at this summer's WSOP.