Winning a World Series of Poker bracelet puts you in an exclusive club. Three individuals, hailing from three separate countries, became members of that group on Sunday.
The 2020 WSOP Online Bracelet Series is coming off a massive weekend that included numerous bracelet winners and an exciting first day of the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship. All of the continued action during the series takes place on the GGPoker poker site, and will continue to do so until September 6 when the final table of the $5,000 Main Event concludes.
In that $10k HU tournament, four players reached the finale, which will be played on Saturday. Those individuals are Michael Zhang, Michael Addamo, Alyssa MacDonald, and high-stakes GOAT David Peters. They'll be playing for the $360,480 1st place prize.
In the meantime, three others took home World Series of Poker bracelets in various events. All three of the recent champions are first-time bracelet winners. Their names are Luis Assuncao Garla from Brazil, Seth Fischer from the United States, and Anatoly Suvarov from Russia.
Recapping the action
In Event #55, HK$8,000 No-Limit Hold'em Asia Poker Championship, a field of 3,247 runners all had their sights set on that shiny gold bracelet. But only Assuncao Garla was able to capture it, and he did so for the first time in his career.
The champion earned a prize of HK$3,551,611. Or, in US dollars, $461,709. Seven countries were represented at the nine-player final table in the Asia Poker Championship, but only three were the continent of Asia. Alan Schein, who finished in 4th place for $167,237, was the lone American at the final table.
If you enjoy goofy last names, you may get a kick out of the tournament's 9th place finisher. Ignacio Moron — that's really his last name — was the first to go at the final table. He earned $30,780. By all accounts, he doesn't live up to his last name's English-language meaning.
Hours later on GGPoker, the final table of Event #56, $1,500 GGMasters WSOP Edition (High Roller), a no-limit hold'em tournament, wrapped up. Seth Fischer, a long-time grinder from Florida, took home the bracelet, and the $44,869 that came with it. He also earned himself a free WSOP Europe package that includes travel and a Main Event seat. That is, of course, assuming the series actually takes place this fall. If not, the package will be good for next year.
Fischer outlasted a field of 2,153 players, enough to crush the $2.5 million guarantee. Although it was his first bracelet, it wasn't the first time he ran deep in a WSOP event. Way back in 2008, Fischer nearly shipped a bracelet in the $2,500 no-limit hold'em event for $330,519.
Here's a blast from the past for you old-school online poker grinders. Fischer lost heads-up to former Italian online poker crusher Dario Minieri, who was an up-and-coming star on the live poker scene back then. Things never really materialized for Minieri, whose poker career fizzled out years ago.
Finally, Anatoly Suvarov was the third player to ship a bracelet on GGPoker on Sunday. The Russian won the third cheapest poker tournament in World Series of Poker history. That event, the 57th of the series, was the $150 buy-in GGMasters WSOP Edition Low-Roller Freezeout. Suvarov won $183,526 in the $1 million guaranteed tournament, beating out 9,835 bracelet hopefuls.
