June 9-12
Years since Nathan Gamble's first ever WSOP, when he finished 12/1,071 in a PLO event.
-
1ST
Nathan Gamble
$767,395
-
2ND
Justin Liberto
$511,580
-
3RD
Matthew Beinner
$351,037
-
4TH
Martin Zamani
$245,467
-
5TH
Nino Pansier
$174,981
-
6TH
Marco Johnson
$127,208
-
7TH
Jarod Minghini
$94,347
-
8TH
Matthew Schreiber
$71,419
-
9TH
Yuhong Liu
$55,202
“This is probably one of the weirdest things you'll hear a poker player ever say, but I don't really think at the table.”
Nathan Gamble, winner of the WSOP $10K Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Championship on Friday night in Las Vegas, certainly doesn’t give that impression.
Over four days of play he’s outmaneuvered and ultimately outlasted a field of 390, stacked with the biggest names in the game.
But if he claims not to be thinking in the heat of battle, it’s because he’s done all the thinking already. Years of playing online, grinding PLO sit & go’s on Full Tilt, have left Gamble with an innate muscle memory when it comes to the four-card game.
“I probably have more reps than anyone in the entire world, so it's literally just repetitious: I know what I'm doing, I know the situation, I've been here thousands of times before. I know what the player dynamics are, what the stack size dynamics are.
“I am very instinctual based off those years of knowledge, and I trust myself to execute correctly. So there's very little of what most people would consider ‘thought’, it's more just process, instinct, knowledge and trusting myself.”
Liberto continues hot streak
Gamble made Friday’s final table of five with the second biggest stack, which sounds promising. However, he had barely a quarter of the stack wielded by chip leader Justin Liberto, which casts a different complexion on his achievement.
Liberto largely cruised through Thursday’s Day 3, peaking at the end of the day and carrying a powerful chip advantage, and perhaps the burden of expectation, into the tournament’s business end.
Joining Liberto and Gamble for the PLO8 Championship finale were Matthew Beinner and Martin Zamani of Florida, as well as Nino Pansier of the Netherlands.
Zamani KO’d Pansier to give himself a leg-up in the chip counts, but Liberto and his huge stack remained the primary threat. Eventually that threat claimed Zamani’s chips thanks to Liberto hitting a perfect river card.
The chips went all-in preflop, Zamani shoving with 
and Liberto calling with 
.
The 
flop gave Zamani two pair and Liberto the nut low draw. The 
on the turn tipped the scales in Zamani’s favor, leaving Liberto hoping to hit a low card to take half the pot.
The river, however, was the 
, completing Liberto’s wheel and sending Zamani to the rail in 4th.
The tables turn
The lead Liberto had started the day with still remained, until a huge pot came along that gave Gamble a platform to push on for the win.
In a blind vs blind hand, Liberto raised the pot from the small blind, Gamble re-potted from the big and Liberto called.
When the flop came 
, Liberto set Gamble all-in. He called.
Nathan Gamble: 
Justin Liberto: 
The final board ran out 
to give Gamble the nut flush for high plus the nut low. Now Gamble had the lead.
By the time Liberto eliminated Beinner in third, the boost to his stack was not enough to retake the lead. Gamble hit heads-up with a chip lead of 17M to 6M, but the evening was far from over.
Bracelet number 3 for Texas' Gamble
Liberto, like Gamble, has mounds of experience in four-card poker, and also has the confidence that comes with recent success.
His most recent WSOP bracelet win came less than two weeks ago, with victory in the $1,500 Mixed Omaha event. He knows what it is to close, and that it’s not over til it’s over.
And so it proved, as Liberto battled back to even, and even re-took the lead. With both players so well-versed in the finer points of split-pot poker, it could have gone either way.
But we know now which way it went.
Gamble, true to his word, went with process, instinct, knowledge and trust in himself, and when a truly big hand came along he had the covering stack.
With blinds at 200K/400K/400K he opened from the button to 1.2M with a speculative .
Liberto 3-bet to 3.6M with , and Gamble made the call.
The flop brought fireworks.
gave Gamble top two pair and Liberto the nut flush draw. Liberto opened to 1.65M, and Gamble set him all-in.
“What’s that piece of junk?” laughed Liberto as he saw Gamble’s hand.
A board full of potential changed nothing, with the and keeping Gamble ahead all the way.
The two pros shared a friendly fist-bump before Gamble joined his friends on the rail to celebrate his third WSOP bracelet, following a live win in 2017 and an online victory in 2020, both in PLO8.
“I took 12th in the very first pot-limit Omaha bracelet event I ever played at my first WSOP,” Gamble told me as he waited to collect his third WSOP bracelet. “I've been chasing that high, that moment, because I knew I could get there from that point forward.”
Gesturing to his rail, Gamble finally let some emotion through after four days of cool, calm detachment.
“I’ve had some amazing support. But I knew there were so many good people that weren't going to be here, and it was actually very hard coming into this summer knowing that, so I'm so incredibly thankful for everyone here that's with me now.”
Additional images courtesy of the WSOP.
