David Prociak kept 2 time gold bracelet winner Brandon Shack-Harris at bay yesterday as he went on to win the first WSOP gold bracelet of his career. Shack-Harris has had one heck of a week—he won Event #51 last week for $894,300—and this time bagged $96,750 while dressed like a Polar Bear. Yes, you read that right. A Polar Bear.
Having only started playing poker last year, this is a major win for Prociak who hails from Florida, saying in his winners interview: “I just started playing poker last October. That’s when I started playing in tournaments. I’ve been doing very well in tournaments lately.”
“I was thinking about this earlier today, that there are so many great players out there who haven’t won a gold bracelet,” Prociak went on to say. “And, here I was in a position to win a bracelet-–and now I’ve won a bracelet. It’s just amazing to me.”
Prociak had to beat 521 entrants to win the title.
Events to watch today
Elsewhere, Event #61: $1,000 Tag Team No-Limit Hold’em finishes up today as nine teams return to win $153,358 and the gold bracelets.
Having made an epic come back on Day 2, Ryan Fee and Doug Polk return with more than 28% of the chips in play after starting the day 84th in chips.
Two-time bracelet-winner John Gale and TJ Shulman are second in chips, while Mohsin Charania and Marvin Rettenmaier have the third biggest stack as play enters its final day.
The final teams look like this:
Seat 1: Bart Lybaert / Adam Owen / Benny Glaser / Owais Ahmed – 293,000 (29 bb)
Seat 2: Niel Mittelman / Adam Greenberg / Gabriel Paul – 425,000 (42 bb)
Seat 3: Marco Caruso / Mike Padula / Daniel Urban – 475,000 (47 bb)
Seat 4: Jonathan Little / Larry Little / Rita Little – 113,000 (11 bb)
Seat 5: Reuben Peters / Robert Altman – 209,000 (20 bb)
Seat 6: James Dempsey / Chris Godfrey – 447,000 (44 bb)
Seat 7: Doug Polk / Ryan Fee – 1,243,000 (124 bb)
Seat 8: John Gale / TJ Shulman – 606,000 (60 bb)
Seat 9: Moshin Charania / Marvin Rettenmaier – 505,000 (50 bb)
Six players are currently battling it out over Event #59: $5000 No-Limit Hold’em before 3 go forward to the final day of play. Currently Yue Du from China is in the chip lead. The final six players are all guaranteed at least $132,030 in prize winnings—there is $800,586 on the line for the winner.
Saturday will see the final table of: Event #62: $25,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha (8-Handed), Event #63: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em and Event #64: $3000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Split 8 or Better.
The Main Event
All eyes will turn to The Main Event which starts in The Rio at 11am local time with “Flight A” on Saturday. Over $7,000,000 will be up for grabs for the winner of the event. Last year, 6,420 players participated with Joe McKeehen collecting $7.6 million and the title.
