He’s one of the most successful and respected mixed game players in any World Series of Poker tournament that isn’t No-Limit Hold ‘em, and now he has one of the most prestigious titles to his name as well.
Bryce Yockey put on a final table clinic, hammering away mercilessly against his helpless opponents to take down the $10,000 Dealer's Choice Championship for his third career bracelet and $371,664.
With previous bracelet wins in PLO and PLO 8 or Better, claiming a title in the event that he ranks only behind the $50,000 Poker Players Championship and the $10,000 Main Event means a lot to him.
“I’ve wanted to win this tournament for a really long time.”
He elaborated on how the variety of 21 available games makes it special and prestigious.
“It’s kind of a weird tournament, because in some ways, it's not like winning a H.O.R.S.E. tournament. When you play H.O.R.S.E., everyone gets to play the games they know they’re walking into. In this tournament, you make people play weird stuff, so I definitely think it helps, but it’s kind of different than winning the PPC. That’s my number one.”
Final table dominance
Yockey started the day in the middle of an 11-player start-of-day pack, but quickly built himself a formidable and then dominant stack, holding over 50 percent of the chips in play at dinner with five opponents still left.
It was a day he described as fun, but not without a bit of adversity, as after the break, he redistributed some of his chips to his opponents. He still had the lead, but victory was by no means a lock. At that point, he leaned on his experience to regain control and sail to the finish line.
“I think the me five years ago would have struggled a lot more in that situation, where I would have maybe started getting in my head and start thinking ‘oh no, this might be going south’. But the reality is, if you stepped back and told me I would have five million chips four-handed, four million chips four-handed, I would have been ecstatic.”
He continued, “The fact that I did lose a lot of chips, yeah, it kind of sucked, but I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. I felt my game plan was completely fine. I thought they were just playing well and winning pots at the right moment, and if it swings back my way, I had enough chips to just take it over again, and that happened.”
$10,000 Dealer's Choice final table results:
- Bryce Yockey (USA) - $371,464
- Ryan Miller (USA) - $241,152
- Jake Schwartz (USA) - $161,292
- Chad Eveslage (USA) - $111,305
- Nick Schulman (USA) - $79,331
- Jeremy Ausmus (USA) - $58,460
- Owais Ahmed (USA) - $44,592
Images courtesy of WSOP
