Erik Seidel Wins His Ninth WSOP Bracelet and $977,842

Poker Hall of Fame member Erik Seidel secured the ninth World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet of his long and illustrious career on August 17, tying him with the legendary Johnny Moss. Seidel’s latest victory puts him one bracelet away from joining Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Phil Ivey in an exclusive club where only those with ten bracelets reside.

Seidel was one of 624 players to exchange $10,300 for the chance to become the WSOP-edition of the Super MILLION$ champion. Only nine of those starters made it through to the star-studded final table.

Sixty players won a slice of the $6,052,800 prize pool. Daniel Dvoress, David Miscikowski, Adrian Mateos, Isaac Haxton, and Michael Addamo cashed. Wenjie Huang fell in 10th place and burst the final table bubble.

Seidel Seventh From Nine at the Final Table

Seidel sat down at the final table seventh in chips, but that only told part of the story. Francisco Benitez held the chip lead with his 60 big blind stack. Seidel’s 6,801,823 stack was worth 43 big blinds, so there was not a massive difference.

Play began at the Super MILLION$ final table, and there was not long to wait before a player crashed out. Thomas Muehloecker raised to 336,000 at the 80,000/160,000 level with Js-Jd and called when Rui Ferreira three-bet all-in for 2,568,922 with Ah-Kd. The Td-6h-5d-3c-Qc board was kind to the jacks, and Ferreira bowed out.

Isaac Baron was eliminated in eighth place at the hands of Chin-Wei Chien. Baron got his stack in with Qd-Js on a 5s-Kh-4s flop but ran into Chein’s Ah-Ac. The 2s turn gave Baron outs to a flush, but the Tc was not one of them.

Seidel claimed his first scalp of the final table when he sent Claas Segebrecht to the showers. Seidel min-raised to 500,000 before calling Segebrecht’s 2,66,437 shove. Segebrecht flipped over 9s-9c, Seidel the Ks-Kh, and a 5s-Ts-3c-Kd-9h board reduced the player count by one.

Benitez extended his lead at the top of the chip counts by claiming the stack of Joachim Haraldstad. Norway’s Haraldstad committed almost half of his stack preflop with Ac-8h before calling off the chips he had behind when Benitez set him all-in with what turned out to be Ah-Kd. The five community cards ran Qs-7h-3d-Qc-4c, and Haraldstad’s tournament ended.

Benitez in Control; Seidel Shortest

Five-handed play ended with the elimination of Chien, a finish worth $355,729. Chien’s 12 big blind shove with 4s-4d should have won the blinds and antes. However, Muehloecker woke up in the big blind with Ad-Jh and called. The door card was an ace, and Chien crashed and burned.

Benitez was still chip leader at this stage, but Seidel had slipped down the counts. Everyone jumped up a payout place when Shyngis Satubayev ran his Ts-Td into the Qc-Qd of Benitez. Benitez now had more chips than his other two opponents combined.

He improved his position further when his Ad-Qs held against Muehloecker’s dominated As-Th. Muehloecker collected $589,785, leaving Seidel (12,197,221 chips) to face Benitez (50,202,779) heads up.

A relative cooler of a hand doubled Seidel up, his Qs-Qd beating Benitez’s Js-Jh. Seifel forged a small led for himself but could not quite shake off his opponent. That was until the start of the 350,000/700,000/85,000a level.

Seidel limped with Ah-8h, Benitez raised to 2,800,000 with Ac-Kd. Seidel shoved, and Benitez called off his 25,925,948 stack. The 4h-Tc-Jh flop gave Seidel hope, with the Ad turn being somewhat irrelevant. The 3h river was anything but a brick because it improved Seidel to a flush and handed him his ninth career WSOP bracelet.

$10,000 Super MILLION$ Final Table Results

This latest victory pushed Seidel’s lifetime tournament earnings past $38.6 million, which is quite ridiculous. Amazingly, this is his first WSOP bracelet for 14 years, but we bet it is not the last.