In case you didn’t already know, the 2018 World Series of Poker is different than most. Historically, the Main Event closes out the WSOP with the crowning of the World Champion the conclusion of Vegas WSOP season.
This year, things are a bit different as several bracelet events are running concurrently with the Main Event. On Sunday, two of those events played to a conclusion. First, Longsheng Tan took down Event #66, $1,500 NL Hold’em. Meanwhile, Anderson Ireland won the $1,500 PLO Bounty.
Longsheng Tan Wins $1,500 NL Hold’em
Event #66, $1,500 NL Hold’em is the first event to run concurrently with the Main Event this year and the final six players returned on Sunday to play to the bracelet. Longsheng Tan returned as chip leader with Adam Laskey less than 1 million behind.
The story of this final table outside of the winner was Lanny Levine. At the start of the final table, he had a relatively healthy stack of 925k but quickly became the short stack Trey Brabham turned trip queen with K-Q against Levine’s pocket aces.
Left with under 10 big blinds, one would assume that would spell the beginning of the end for Levine, but he managed to catch back-to-back doubles to move out of the cellar. From there, he climbed his way slowly into second place, but by this point, Longsheng Tan had begun to take over.
After Jayaram Kovoorchathoth knocked out Trey Brabham in third, Tan had a 4.5 million chip lead over the remaining field. Levine then closed the gap a bit when he knocked out Kovoorchathoth in third and just 2.2 million chips separated the pair going into heads-up play.
There wasn’t any significant chip movement until the final hand. On a board of Qs-9h-7c-As-7d, Levine bet 400k and Tan raised to 1.4 million. Levine then shoved for just under 3 million and Tan insta-called.
Levine showed 10s-7s for trip sevens while Tan showed Ad-7h for sevens-full. Tan’s full house was enough to give him the hand and his first WSOP bracelet.
This has been a year of firsts for Longsheng Tan. Last month, he scored his first six-figure live score. Now he has won his first major live poker event to secure his first career bracelet and $323,472 for the largest score of his live poker career.
https://twitter.com/thePokerWire/status/1016169090564657152
Anderson Ireland Wins $1,500 PL Omaha Bounty
The other event to complete on Sunday was Event #67, the $1,500 PL Omaha Bounty Event. Sunday saw the final ten players return to play for the bracelet with Matt O’Donnell leading. O’Donnell also happened to be the only player remaining in the field having previously won a WSOP bracelet, taking down a $2,500 NL Event back in 2015.
Impressively, O’Donnell managed to navigate his way through the final table to make it heads-up against Anderson Ireland. However, at the start of heads-up play, Ireland held a 2:1 chip lead. Ireland extended that lead to 7:1 before O’Donnell came storming back.
He started his comeback by catching quads to double and later caught another double to take the chip lead. After holding the lead for a while, Ireland retook the lead and then pulled out to more than a 5:1 chip lead prior to the final hand.
In the final hand, O’Donnell moved all-in with bottom pair and a backdoor flush draw against an overpair for Ireland. The turn and river blanked O’Donnell and Anderson Ireland won his first WSOP bracelet.
Amazingly, this is the first career live tournament cash for Ireland. He made it count as he took down the event, his first bracelet, and $141,161 in prize money.
https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1016217578027474944
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