WSOP Day 11 Recap: Dan Zack Wins Second Bracelet and Dominick Sarle Claims First on Epic Day

There was drama, excitement and plenty of action on Day 11 of this year’s World Series as eight bracelet events took place across both Bally’s and Paris casinos in Las Vegas on Friday night. With three more bracelets winners crowned, five other events saw the picture clear and threw up some great stories.

Zack Wins Epic Duel to Claim Second WSOP Bracelet

Daniel Zack finally overcame Dustin Dirksen after a heads-up battle that lasted an amazing seven hours as the popular poker pro became a double bracelet winner in Las Vegas. The Event #15 field saw just five players return to action at the final table, but after the relatively swift bust-outs for Jake Liebeskind (5^th for $105,913), Ray Dekhharghani (4^th for $142,456) and Israel’s Yuval Bronshtein in third for $195,203, the overnight chip leader’s departure precipitated an unbelievable fight for the title.

Dirksen, who had never won a bracelet, took on Zack who was going for his second. In a battle punctuated by good-natured chat, intense pre-flop plays and ultimately, a ludicrous number of double-ups for the shorter-stacked all-in player, the duel was finally settled at around 4.15am Vegas time when Zack’s pair of kings made sure he was crowned a WSOP champion for the second time, winning over $440,000 in the process.

You can watch it all play out as it happened only on PokerGO right here:

Dominick Sarle Wins Maiden Bracelet in Redemption Tale

In Event #17, Dominick Sarle saw his dreams come true as he won gold in Vegas in the $2,500-entry Mixed Triple Draw event. At an entertaining final table, Sarle managed to win where last year he fell in second place in an online WSOP event where he had held a big chip lead.

This time, on the final day, the chip leader Bariscan Betil plummeted out of the reckoning and cashed in 11^th place, meaning the momentum of the final table was with Sarle.

With the top seven including stars of the felt such as John Monnette and Alex Epstein, but it was Philip Eisman who busted first. Shortly after he left, two former bracelet winners in Alex Epstein and Matthew Schreiber busted in sixth and fifth places respectively. John Monnette was a big scalp for the eventual winner in fourth before Sarle, while Jerry Wong was building a convincing chip lead, took out Daniel Strelitz in third place.

Heads-up, Wong had a 2:1 lead, but that changed quickly and Sarle would not relinquish the lead again, winning in A-5 Triple Draw to seal his first WSOP bracelet win, taking the top prize of $164,243.

Bryan Schultz Edges Eum to First Bracelet Win

Bryan Schultz won Event #18 after defeating a persistent Young Sike um heads-up for the title. Taking the top prize of $330,057 and his first-ever WSOP bracelet, Schultz conquered a final table where Angela Jordison came close to becoming the second open event female winner at this year’s WSOP, only for a river card to send her to the rail in third place for $151,544 and propel Schultz to within touching distance of a victory he sealed minutes later.

With 2,663 players in total, 400 players were paid and the final day played out over 15 hours in a big-value buy-in event that once again proved that for a mere $1,000 buy-in, life-changing money can be won at the World Series of Poker.   

Miscikowski Claims Lead as Event #16 Reaches Final Day

David Miscikowski bagged up 9.8 million chips as he took the lead with nine players remaining in the $3,000-entry NLHE Event #16. With others such as bracelet winner Joey Weissman (4.98m) and Davide Suriano (2.72m) also in contention, the overnight chip leader Alex Foxen survived the day but lost his lead as the man chasing his first bracelet bagged 4.02m at the close of play.

It was a topsy-turvy day for many, and Niall Farrell was one to whom that term applied. Farrell led the field with just 27 players left but busted in 12^th place for just over $28,000 instead. Jeff Platt put up a valiant effort on Day 3 but his light went out in 45^th place for a little over $11,000 when he ran ace-deuce into ace-queen.

With 77 players battling down to just nine, the top prize of $558,616 will be fought for tomorrow as three bracelet winners and six potential first-time winners will gather to battle it out for over half a million dollars.

Ball Leads from Williams, Negreanu and Arieh in PLO High Roller 

In Event #19, the $25,000-entry Pot Limit Omaha High Roller, a dramatic day of action saw players such as Scott Ball, David Williams and Daniel Negreanu all make the top 10 on the leaderboard by the close of play. The day started with late registrations boosting the field by an additional number of 69, with 264 entries, an uptick of almost 20% from last year’s corresponding event, confirming a gargantuan prize pool of $6.23 million.

After an epic day at the felt, just 28 players remain, with the two-time WSOP bracelet winner Scott Ball top of the leaderboard on 3,990,000 chips after a late surge. Behind him, Jonathan Depa (3,625,000) also had a great day, with WSOP Main Event runner-up David Williams not too far back in third on 2,970,000 chips. Elsewhere in the top 10, James Chen (2,585,000), Sam Stein (1,635,000) and Daniel Negreanu (1,550,000) can all look forward to a penultimate day which will put them in contention for the title.

Altizer Leads from Benny Glaser in Event #20

On a day where legends of the game such as Allen ‘Chainsaw’ Kessler, former WSOP Main Event winner Joe McKeehen and Adam Friedman (16^th for $5,054) all busted, Von Altizer was the lady left with the largest stack on Day 2 of the $1,500-entry Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Event #20.

Just nine players remain to play down to a winner on Saturday night, with Altizer (2,625,000) ahead of Yufei Zhong (2,290,000) and Benny Glaser (1,185,000) at the final table, with British mixed game legend Glaser shooting for his fifth WSOP bracelet winner when play resumes – along with the $108,250. Glaser is one of only two former bracelet winners still in the field, with Kenny Hsiung (485,000) the only other previous WSOP bracelet holder in the running for the Event #20 victory.

Two More Events Close Out Opening Days

In the $1,500-entry Monster Stack Event #21, there were terrific Day 1as for players such as chip leader Frank Lagodich (635,000), Italian poker sensation Mustapha Kanit (550,500) and Vanessa Kade (470,500), while others to survive the day included Paul Siegel (491,500), Andrew Dean (485,000), Tim Reilly (481,000), Michael Gathy (380,000) and Johnnie ‘Vibes’ Moreno (367,500).

Players to fall at the first stage included former WSOP bracelet winners Michael Mizrachi, Kevin MacPhee and Jason Wheeler, while Women in Poker’s Hall of Fame JJ Liu also met with an early demise.

Bertrand Grospellier, otherwise known as ‘ElKy’, leads the Seven Card Stud Championship after Day 1 of the $10,000-entry Seven Card Stud Championship, with Phil Ivey close behind. The Frenchman bagged up 262,000 by the close of play, with Ivey racking up an almost-as-impressive 256,500.

Yueqi Zhu (237,000), Randy Ohel (228,000), James Paluszek (220,500), Adam Friedman (153,000) and Brian Rast (108,000) all made it through to Day 2, while others such as Cliff Josephy, Scott Seiver, Frank Kassela, Felipe Ramos, Perry Friedman, Nick Schulman, Mike Matusow and Shaun Deeb all fell by the wayside, with just 41 of the 85 entries making the next day’s play.

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