India’s Abhinav Iyer wins WSOP 2019 Bracelet
The biggest poker tournament in the world, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) hosted its 50th Annual Event from 28th May to 16th July 2019, with the event bringing a bracelet winner for an Indian for the third consecutive year.
The WSOP 2019 tournament was attended by many Indian players, who earned a total of $1,701,074 at the tournament, bringing India at position 18 among all the participating countries.
Indian players also had a total of 148 cashes, placing India at the 17th position for total cashes.
Abhinav Iyer’s Bracelet Win at WSOP 2019
One event where India’s Player Abhinav Iyer made a mark was Event #84: The Closer – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em.
Iyer won his first-ever bracelet at $1500 Closer event with the prize of $565,346 (INR 3.87 Crore). This event at the 2019 World Series Of Poker was one of the last events with big payouts.
Besides the prize money, Iyer also won 1200 POY (Player of the Year) points.
So far, Robert Campbell has the highest POY points (3418.78 points) to become 2019 Player of the Year, followed by Shaun Deeb (3280.13 points) and Daniel Negreanu (3166.24 points). See the full and updated list of POY on WSOP’s website.
The 2019 Players of the Year is being decided on the basis of 83 bracelet events in Las Vegas and 10 bracelet events at WSOP Europe (Oct 15 – Nov 4).
Abhinav Iyer is the fourth Indian-origin player to win a bracelet after Nipun Java (2017; California-based), Aditya Sushant (2017) and Nikita Luther (2018). The latter three won their bracelets in tag team events.
Related:
Read about Daval Mudgal’s thoughts on winnings of Indian players at international games.
Iyer won to Sammy Lafleur who got a payout of $349,417 and 1000 POY points.
The final table of the $1500 Closer event features last year’s Player of the Year Shaun Deeb (also among top players for the race for POY 2019), as well. Deeb was seventh in the event and earned $80,766.
On the day of his win, Iyer told WSOP reporters,
“I won crucial pots at the right time. Luckily my table on day 1 was pretty good, and also my table starting today was relatively good. I came into (today) with over 50 big blinds so I knew I could maneuver my stack.”
Iyer to WSOP reporters
Last year, India’s Paawan Bansal finished as a runner-up in the same event for a prize of $378,765 (INR 2.59 crore).
Another Indian player who played exceptionally well at World Series of Poker 2019 is Raghav Bansal, who stood third in Event #42: $600 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em / Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack 8-Handed and earned $88,410. He played a total of five events at the tournament and had a total earning of $96,153.
WSOP 2019 Main event champion and other winners
Hossein Ensan from Germany is the official champion of WSOP 2019. He bagged earnings of $10,000,000.
“It’s unbelievable, I cannot understand this moment. … I must go to sleep and wake up, and then maybe I know I have the bracelet. Maybe it’s a dream. I don’t know.”
Ensan told ESPN
The Main Event of the 2019 WSOP is a $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em game. This 10-day event started on 3rd July and ended on 16th July 2019.
Total 8569 entries were seen at the event, with the highest number of players (6,110) entering from the United States. There was a prizepool of $80,548,600, which is the second-largest till date in WSOP history.
Houseein Ensan had a great last run at the event with Dario Sammartino from Italy, who took home $6,000,000. Alex Livingston came third with the earning of $4,000,000.
Darion, when speaking about Ensan to ESPN, said,
“He’s a really good guy. I met him a long time ago; we are friends and I really love him, so I’m really happy for him. Of course I wanted to win this, but he is the winner, so bravo.”
Darion to ESPN
Check out the full report on 2019 WSOP Main Event Results on WSOP’s website.
Get a full update on all the bracelet winners at WSOP 2019.
Poker Hall of Fame 2019
The 2019 Poker Hall of Fame (PHOF) has announced 57th and 58th members to be added to the Hall of Fame. The latest additions are Chris Moneymaker and David Oppenheim.
Chris Moneymaker is a player who ignited the poker boom with the featuring of his 2003 WSOP Main Event win at a Tonight Show appearance, a wide media coverage for the game of poker.
He was just 27 years old at the time of his celebrated win. His reaction to the news of being added to PHOF was, “I’m very honored… very happy. It’s great for my kids — it’ll be a cool thing for them to see when they grow up.”
David Oppenheim was recognized for his entry to poker’s elite club. Players fear him for his cash games. He has played professional poker for about a quarter of a century.
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