Peter Eichhardt, Ian Johns and Alan Percal made their dreams come true in Las Vegas yesterday as they each walked away with World Series of Poker bracelets, titles, prize money and a place in poker history.
Event #6: $1500 No-Limit Hold’em
Peter Eichhardt a 50 year old poker pro and part time fiction writer from Sweden won Event #6: $1500 No-Limit Hold’em. He collected $438,417 in prize money, making it the biggest win of his poker career.
Playing in Vegas since 1992 and entering the World Series of Poker Main Event Championship eight times, this is only the second time he has cashed in a WSOP event.
“It is huge to win this” said Eichhardt. “This is my first time to make it to a WSOP final table, so this was huge for me, I think we have seven or eight gold bracelet winners in Sweden. Chris Bjorin has two. And of course, there’s Martin Jacobson (the former world champion). But it’s still pretty unusual for us in Sweden to win a gold bracelet. It’s special for us.”
Event #6 attracted 2016 players and had a prize pool totaling $2,721,600—the top 303 finishers all collected prize money.
Second place went to David Aalvik who earned $270,842 for his performance—making his total prize winnings for the WSOP and WSOP circuit events more than six figures.
Event #8: $1500 H. O. R. S. E.
In Event #8: $1500 H. O. R. S. E., Ian Johns defeated poker pro Justin Bonomo head to head to take down the tournament.
Johns won the second gold bracelet of his career and bagged $212,604 in prize money. Johns last won a title ten years ago when he took down a $3000 Limit Hold’em event.
Justin Bonomo finished up in second place with $131,412 in winnings. This is the fourth time he has had a second place finish in a WSOP bracelet event.
Event #9: $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Surprising everyone, the 23 year old from Florida who had never cashed in a WSOP event before, Alan Percal defeated some of the best heads up poker players in the world to take down Event #9: $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship. It was only the second heads-up event Percal had ever played.
Percal collected $320,574 in prize money after defeating his final opponent John Smith—a military veteran who has been playing poker for 50 years. Smith as runner up collected $198,192 in prize money.
The event was played out over three days and nights during which Percal also defeated Brian Rast, Jeff Gross, Alan Wehbi, Konstantin Ramazanov, and Benjamin Geisman and Olivier Busquet to claim his title.
“I was excited to get the bye in the first round – everyone wants the bye,” Percal went on to say. “Then, I ended up drawing Brian Rast in the second round. When I saw that, I just started laughing. There were like 100 players I would have rather drawn than Rast. But after I defeated him, that gave me a lot of confidence, and he even complimented me afterward that I played well. That was definitely the most nerve-racking, since it’s only the second Heads-Up tournament I’ve played. After that win, I felt much more comfortable.”
Events Finishing Up Today
Concluding today is Event #10: $1500 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em and Event #11: $10,000 Dealers Choice 6-Handed Championship.
Javier Garcirreynaldos, who is looking for his first gold bracelet leads the final 21 players into Day 3 of Event #10 with 1,440,000 in chips after soaring into the chip lead late in the night. Last year’s November Niner Pierre Neuville from France still has chips as does the ever-dangerous Fedor Holz from Germany. Both players find themselves short-stacked and in search of their first WSOP bracelets.
There are 11 players reaming in Event #11. Jean Gaspard has the chiplead, but high stakes poker pro Dan Smith is clode behind in second. Other notables still alive include two-time bracelet winner John Monnette, and Russian pro Alexander Kostritsyn.
