Rafael Lebron plays very little poker year-round as he focuses most his time on his car dealership in Payallup, Washington and spending time with his family. But he does make an effort to come out to the World Series of Poker ever year, and this year that decision has already paid off with a victory in the 2021 WSOP Event #14 $1,500 Seven Card Stud tournament. Lebron earned the second WSOP gold bracelet of his career with his win on Friday night as well as the tournament’s first-place prize of $82,262.
All but two of the 21 documented live cashes on Lebron’s Hendon Mob page have come in WSOP events. Lebron finished runner-up in the $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Six-Handed event at the 2016 WSOP for $212,779. He then won $169,337 and his first gold bracelet in the $3,000 Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event just one week later in that same series. In total, Lebron has earned $562,679 in tournament earnings from his 19 WSOP cashes.
This year’s $1,500 Seven Card Stud event drew a total of 260 players to create a total prize pool of $348,435. Unlike some other tournaments in this series ( such as the Millionaire Maker), that have seen a significant drop-off in attendance from 2019, this event didn’t fall too far behind 2019’s 285 total entries.
Lebron had to overcome a loaded final table
Something about this tournament seems to generate stacked final tables. In 2019, Eli Elezra won his fourth career WSOP bracelet facing a final table that included Anthony Zinno, Scott Seiver, David Singer and Rep Porter. This year, four of the final six players remaining were WSOP bracelet winners in Lebron, David Williams, Nicholas Seiken and four-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb.
But Lebron prevailed. He entered the final table with a significant chip lead with 1,450,000 of the chips in play, and maintained that chip lead through the end of Day 2. When the final six players returned on Day 3, Lebron had 1,690,000 chips, just under 500,000 more than Shaun Deeb in second place with 1,195,000.
Deeb would eventually settle for a fifth-place finish for $18,475. By the time heads-up play began against David Williams, Rafael Lebron had build up close to a 4-to-1 chip advantage. Lebron was able to convert that chip lead into a win in fairly short order to lock up bracelet number two.
This is the fourth time that Williams has finished runner-up in a WSOP event. The most notable being his second-place finish in the 2004 WSOP Main Event to Greg Raymer. Williams picked up his WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event in 2006.
Final Table Payouts
1. Rafael Lebron: $82,262
2. David Williams: $50,842
3. David Moskowitz: $35,521
4. Christina Hill: $25,344
5. Shaun Deeb: $18,475
6. Nicholas Seiken: $13,766
7. Maurizio Melara: $10,490
8. Hal Rotholz: $8,179
9. Steven Albini: $6,528
Featured Image Credit: PokerGO
