WSOP APAC 2014 - Danzer wins third bracelet, Phil Hellmuth falls short of 14th title, Main Event underway

As we have previously reported, Phil Hellmuth was in contention for his 14th WSOP bracelet in the  A$2,200 Six-Max No-Limit Holdem event at the APAC, and George Danzer was looking to win his third bracelet in the A$5,000 8-Game Mix event. Hellmuth eventually finished in fourth place, while Danzer won, extending his lead in the WSOP Player of the Year race. The Main Event has also started, Tobias Reinkemeier ended up as the chipleader of Day 1a.

Danzer has amazing results this year, he won three bracelets in one WSOP season. He is the sixth player to do it in history and the first since 2009, when Jeff Lisandro made the triple. The other members of the prestigious "3 bracelets in a year" club are Phil  Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Ted Forrest and Puggy Pearson.

The first player to bust was Sam Khouiss, shortly followed by Tino Lechich. Fourth place finisher was Ismael Bojang, who has cashed a record 13 times in this year's WSOP events. He lost most of his stack against Duhamel and Clements in 2-7 Triple Draw. Duhamel followed shortly, and the heads-up began with Danzer holding the chip lead.

Clements managed to climb back, but Danzer scored a huge double up on a 7-5-6 two spades board, he went-all in with 65 against Clement's AA, and managed to hold up. Clements managed to get the lead back but couldn't capitalize on it. In the final hand, Clements shoved nine big blinds with Q6 suited, Danzer called with J-T and caught a ten on the flop to win the tournament and A$84,600. With his victory he has built a 116.8 point lead over Brandon Shack-Harris with only a few more events to go.

Final table results:

Place Name Country Prize (AU$)

1 George Danzer Germany $84,600

2 Scott Clements Canada $52,340

3 Jonathan Duhamel Canada $34,291

4 Ismael Bojang Germany $23,688

5 Tino Lechich Australia $17,371

6 Sam Khouiss Australia $13,310

In the A$2,200 Six-Max No-Limit Holdem tournament, Phil Hellmuth was battling for his 14th WSOP bracelet.

The first player to bust was this year's November Niner Bruno Politano, he lost a coinflip with QQ against Phil Hellmuth's A-K. 

The next player to be eliminated was Yu Kurita, he also lost a coinflip after 4bet-jamming with JJ and getting called by Michael Tran's A-K.

Hellmuth fell in fourth place, he went all-in with around 12 big blinds from the button and was called by Michael Tran's 44. The board came Q-5-6-3-Q and that was it for the Poker Brat.

Three-handed play continued for three hours before the next elimination. Steven Zhou raised on the button to 25,000, Antonios defended from the small blind, and Tran called from the big blind aswell. On the flop of K-7-5 with two spades, Zhou continued for 32,000 after both his opponents checked. Antonios check-raised to 107,000 and Zhou went all-in with 341,000. Antonios eventually decided to call, showing A2 of spades for an overcard and a flushdraw, while Zhou had K9 for top pair.

The turn 4 changed nothing, but the Ace on the river sent Zhou packing in third place, while Antonios took a 6-1 chip lead. The tournament ended soon after, the two-players ended up all-in with Antonios in the lead with K-4. Tran held the T-9 and couldn't improve, and with this, Sydney cash game player Alex Antonios won the bracelet and almost A$130,000.

Alex Antonios

Final table results:

Place Player Player (AU$)

1 Alex Antonios $128,784

2 Michael Tran $79,646

3 Steven Zhou $55,365

4 Phil Hellmuth $38,909

5 Yu Kurita $27,624

6 Bruno Politano $19,809

The A$10,000 Main Event has also started, 129 players entered, and by the end of the day, just 70 of them remained, with Tobias Reinkemeier. Other big names in the top 10 include Jesse Sylvia, Jack Salter and Jackie Glazier.

Plenty of great players busted, Mohsin Charania, Dan Shak, Mike Leah, Ryan Riess were all eliminated.

Day 1b will start with defending champ Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari, Greg Merson, Joe Hachem, Ismael Bojang, Brian Rast and others.