It is not uncommon to find a double bracelet winner at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. With dozens of events – 88 this year – almost every year in the past decade has seen at least one player go on a heater and win more than one bracelet in a series. This year, six players did it.
The feat is much tougher at the WSOP Europe. The 2021 WSOPE has just 15 tournaments, so it is tough to run hot enough to rack up two wins in such a short period of time.
Julien Martini changed that. He started the summer with a win at the All Poker Open (APO) in Paris. He then made his way to Las Vegas, navigating the travel restrictions from France to America to do so. After cashing in four tournaments there, he ran deep in the $10K NL 2-7 Lowball Championship, finishing in sixth place at the final table.
Martini then took his action to the WSOP Europe at King’s Casino in the Czech Republic. That’s where he ran better. He won the €2500 NL Short Deck tournament (Event 8). It was the second of his career, as he won his first at the 2018 WSOP in Las Vegas in Omaha-8. And he kept running hot, winning the €2K 8-Game Mix (Event 12) this week.
Not only did Martini grab his third career bracelet and the second in about a week, he also became the first French player to ever win three WSOP bracelets. Roger Hairabedian and Bertrand Grospellier each have two bracelets; Hairabedian won his in 2012 and 2013 and Grospellier in 2011 and 2019.
Now with more than $5M in live tournament winnings, Martini continues to play the WSOPE. There are a just a couple of events remaining, but no one should count him out. Heaters are real.
Let’s see what else happened over the last two days at King’s in Rozvadov.
Event 10: €25K NLHE Platinum High Roller
Eight players returned for Day 3 of this big buy-in tournament. Martin Kabrhel started out in the chip lead, but he quickly lost ground and busted in fourth place, just after American Jordan Westmorland. Joni Jouhkimainen had some final table rungood going for him, despite trailing going into heads-up play. He finished fifth in a WSOP event in Las Vegas, then finished second in Event 7 at WSOP Europe just days before this event. So, when he doubled into the lead during heads-up, it seemed that he would break through. But the battle continued for some time, with Andriy Lyubovetskiy taking the win.
The Ukrainian winner was almost surprised when he won. “At this moment,” he told PokerNews, “I don’t think I’ve realized what’s going on and what just happened. But I can tell you that I’ve been pursuing this dream for the whole 12 years that I’ve been playing poker.”
Six players began the final day of 6-max play, and players were exchanging chips for several levels before the day’s original chipleader, Tony Tran, busted. Simone Adrian didn’t take control of the table until three-handed play, but that gave him the advantage heads-up. Adrian never let up, ultimately claiming his first bracelet.
Only a few dozen players wanted to try their hands in the 8-game tournament. That meant a relatively quick event, as only ten players made it to Day 2. Ole Schemion was the chip leader, but Julien Martini as a middle stack and players like Max Pescatori and Roland Israelashvili on shorter stacks.
Day 2 started with several short players exiting quickly, and Schemion remained in control. However, Martini doubled during four-handed play, from which point Martini and Schemion fought for the lead. Martini took it, though, when he ousted Nicolas Bokowski in third place. Martini took it from there and all the way to French poker history.
He told PokerNews, “To have one more bracelet than these two legends (Hairabedian and Grospellier) is very, very special.”
Only 73 entries for this event limited the prize pool to €672K, and only 13 players bagged chips for Day 2 action. Some big names were in that group, like Bertrand Grospellier, Roland Israelashvili, and Sonny Franco. But the player in the chip lead was none other than Julien Martini.
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