Remko on the Rail – Maiden Winners Dominate WSOP

As the World Series of Poker approaches its fiftieth year of existence, well more than 1,000 gold bracelets have been awarded in events varying from the $1,000 Big One for One Drop all the way down to the $565 Casino Employee’s Event. There’s a story behind each and every one of those wins, and no matter big or small, those stories hold a special place in the hearts and minds of those who won.

Today, in Remko on the Rail, we focus on some of those new stories as the 2018 WSOP has seen a plethora of maiden winners in recent events. Get caught up with all the latest action right now, as I take you through the ever-growing list of names that will forever be referred to as “bracelet winner.”

Small Buy-ins, Big Money

Starting with the best return on investment in an open event, Robert Peacock took down the $1,000 Double Stack, leaving no less than 5,700 entries behind him. Supported by a loud rail of friends and family, Peacock kept his head cool in the closing stages of the final table, bagging up a big overnight lead heading into the unscheduled fifth day of play. On that final day, Peacock sent Joshua Turner and Nicholas Salimbene to the rail before getting mobbed by his friends.

Event #34 $1,000 Double Stack Final Table Payouts
	Name	Country	Payout
1	Robert Peacock	United States	$644,224
2	Nicholas Salimbene	United States	$397,908
3	Joshua Turner	United States	$294,760
4	Jacky Wong	Hong Kong	$219,952
5	Ralph Wong	United States	$165,342
6	Daniel Eichhorn	United States	$125,215
7	James Ostrowski	United States	$95,538
8	Pfizer Jordan	United States	$73,446
9	Takao Shizumi	Japan	$56,891

Continuing the trend of enormous ROIs, Timur Margolin took down the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em event, defeating a field of 1,248 players. The final table of this event was stacked and the final four players returned for live streaming coverage with hole cards on the Poker Central Twitch channel. Relive the battle between Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson, Ismael Bojang and Michael Marder down below in the embedded player.

Winning this event for $500,724 now accounts for a third of Margolin’s total career earnings, outlasting German mixed game specialist Ismael Bojang who took home $313,444. This is now also the biggest score of Bojang’s career.

Event #43: $2,500 No Limit Hold’em Payouts
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	Timur Margolin	Israel	$507,274
2	Ismael Bojang	Germany	$313,444
3	Michael Marder	United States	$223,564
4	Chris Ferguson	United States	$161,371
5	Dylan Linde	United States	$117,894
6	Ryan Laplante	United States	$87,189
7	Jeff Hakim	Lebanon	$65,284
8	Andre Haneberg	Germany	$49,498
9	Josh Bergman	United States	$38,009

The Bonyadi Family Adds a Bracelet

Three-time bracelet winner Farzad Bonyadi has two deep runs so far this summer, finishing fourth and eight in 2-7 Triple Draw events, but it was his mother Farhintaj who brought another bracelet to the family in the $1,000 Super Seniors event! Bonyadi showed her son how it’s done, outlasting 2,191 entries to claim the $311,451 first-place prize.

Bracelet winners Steve Zolotow, Michael Moore, Konstantin Puchkov, Philip Tom and Gary Benson also finished in the money in this event.

Event #36 $1,000 Super Seniors Final Table Payouts
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	Farhintaj Bonyadi	United States	$311,451
2	Robert Beach	United States	$192,397
3	Paul W Lee	United States	$140,273
4	Linda Iwaniak	United Kingdom	$103,215
5	Russell Sutton	Canada	$76,655
6	Alan Denkenson	United States	$57,465
7	Charles Thompson	United States	$43,489
8	Neil Henley	United States	$33,227
9	Bill Fogel	United States	$25,633

Two More Hold’em Heroes

Spain added a bracelet in the $1,000 Big Blind Antes event with just 30-minute levels, as Mario Prats Garcia outlasted a field of 1,712 players. This fast and furious event took fewer than seven hours on Day 2, as Garcia left players such as Martin Staszko and DJ MacKinnon behind him at the final table. The payouts for this event are as follows.

Event #45 $1,000 NLHE Final Table Payouts
	Name	Country	Payout
1	Mario Prats Garcia	Spain	$258,255
2	Matthew Hunt	United Kingdom	$159,532
3	Sebastian Dornbracht	Germany	$114,909
4	Michael Wang	United States	$83,663
5	Mark Schluter	United States	$61,580
6	Gregory Worner	United States	$45,828
7	DJ MacKinnon	United States	$34,486
8	Martin Staszko	Czech Republic	$26,245
9	Lander Lijo	Spain	$20,202

Sidetracking briefly for an update on the online event, Matthew ‘mendey’ Mendez took down the first ever online Pot Limit Omaha bracelet event. This $565 buy-in tournament had 1,223 total entries and created a prize pool of $635,960. The final table included plenty of big names as the payouts are as follows.

Event #47 $565 Online Pot Limit Omaha 6-Max
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	Matthew ‘mendey’ Mendez	United States	$135,077
2	Marton ‘GS.GURU’ Czuczor	Hungary	$82,865
3	Anthony ‘heheh’ Zinno	United States	$57,299
4	Alex ‘3shotwonder’ Smith	United States	$40,256
5	Ankush ‘rickrosstheb’ Mandavia	United States	$28,745
6	Ao ‘Maimai1990’ Chen	United States	$20,859

The final No Limit Hold’em event from this recap is the $1,500 Shootout, that drew 908 total players. The final table was live-streamed on Twitch, and you can rewatch the battle between the final six players here.

Ultimately it was Preston Lee who won his first bracelet, beating Corey Dodd heads-up. Dylan Linde continued his strong showing at this year’s WSOP with a fourth-place finish.

Event #39 $1,500 NLHE Shootout Final Table
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	Preston Lee	United States	$236,498
2	Corey Dodd	United States	$146,146
3	Anthony Reategui	United States	$105,907
4	Dylan Linde	United States	$76,829
5	Jesse Kertland	United States	$56,763
6	Young Phan	United States	$42,476
7	Royce Matheson	United States	$32,198
8	Alexander Lakhov	Russia	$24,728
9	Bas de Laat	Netherlands	$19,245
10	Endrit Geci	United Kingdom	$15,180

Limited Betting, Unlimited Smiles

Moving away from the Cadillac of poker, there are six more bracelets to dive into on this edition of Remko on the Rail, starting with Yuegi Zhu’s first win. Zhu’s been a long-time grinder of WSOP events, collecting no less than 70 cashes before getting his first win. Zhu took down the $1,500 Mixed Omaha event, defeating a final table that included bracelet winners Carol Fuchs, Ryan Hughes and defending champion Nathan Gamble.

Event #35 $1,500 Mixed Omaha Final Table Payouts
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	Yueqi Zhu	China	$211,781
2	Gabriel Ramos	United States	$130,850
3	Carol Fuchs	United States	$89,488
4	Matthew Gregoire	United States	$62,226
5	Jon Turner	United States	$44,007
6	Peter Neff	United States	$31,662
7	Ryan Hughes	United States	$23,182

Staying with Omaha, David Brookshire took down the $2,500 Mixed Omaha/Stud Hi-Lo Eight-or-Better event for $214,291. This split-pot extravaganza drew 402 players and the final table included Colombia’s Daniel Ospina, winner of the first bracelet for his home country earlier this summer.

Event #46 $2,500 Omaha/Stud Hi-Lo Eight-or-Better Final Table Payouts
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	David Brookshire	United States	$214,291
2	Brendan Taylor	United States	$132,443
3	Daniel Ospina	Colombia	$89,968
4	Ian Shaw	Mexico	$62,331
5	Tyler Groth	United States	$44,059
6	Hani Awad	United States	$31,789
7	William Shelton	United States	$23,421
8	Eric Rodawig	United States	$17,628

The limited version of the $1,500 Hold’em event remained consistent and drew 596 total players with Robert Nehorayan grabbing the win for $173,568. Nehorayan defeated long-time grinder Kevin Song who was going for his second bracelet after winning the $2,000 Limit Hold’em tournament all the way back in 1997. Back then Song took home $397,120 for that win, battling through a final table that included Dan Heimiller, Erik Seidel, Huck Seed and Berry Johnston. Here are the payouts for this year’s event.

Event #41 $1,500 Limit Hold’em Final Table Payouts
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	Robert Nehorayan	United States	$173,568
2	Kevin Song	United States	$107,242
3	David Gee	United States	$73,860
4	Terricita Gutierrez	United States	$51,733
5	Michael Jex	United States	$36,860
6	Brad Albrinck	United States	$26,725
7	Oleg Chebotarev	Russia	$19,723
8	Matt Russell	United States	$14,820
9	Matt Woodward	United States	$11,343

Just last night, Jay Kwon denied Polish poker phenom Dzmitry Urbanovich his first bracelet by taking home his own first. Kwon outlasted a total of 389 players in the $1,500 Razz event that also saw big names such as Adam Owen and Kevin Iacofano make the final table. This was Kwon’s third cash in a Razz event, and his fourth total at the WSOP, cementing his reputation as a Razz specialist.

Event #50 $1,500 Razz Final Table Payouts
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	Jay Kwon	United States	$125,431
2	Dzmitry Urbanovich	Poland	$77,526
3	Adam Owen	United Kingdom	$52,536
4	Michael McKenna	United States	$36,324
5	Kevin Iacofano	United States	$25,637
6	Thomas Taylor	Canada	$18,477
7	Jeff Mitseff	United States	$13,605
8	Jeanne David	United States	$10,240
9	Kyle Montgomery	United States	$7,881

And last but not least, we conclude this long summary of maiden winners at the World Series of Poker with Scott Bohlman. While it too Zhu 70 cashes to get his first win, Bohlman was getting up there as well with his 51st cash turning into his first gold. Bohlman took down the $2,500 Mixed Big Bet event for $122,138 after more than 15 years on the felt.

Event #40 $2,500 Mixed Big Bet Payouts
	Name	Country	Payouts
1	Scott Bohlman	United States	$122,138
2	Ryan Hughes	United States	$75,477
3	Daniel Weinman	United States	$49,541
4	Aaron Rogers	United States	$33,344
5	Marcel Vonk	Netherlands	$23,028
6	Jeremy Harkin	United States	$16,329

Stay tuned for more exciting poker action right here on Poker Central, follow us on Twitch for more final table action, and subscribe to PokerGO to not miss a minute of the wall-to-wall coverage of the WSOP Main Event.