WSOP Day 8 Recap sees Jonathan Dimmig wins the Millionaire Maker, Brock Parker win his third gold bracelet, Jeff Smith win his first, Justin Bonomo getting closer to his first, and much more.
Who wants to be a millionaire?
Joe Dimmig.
Although you wouldn’t have thought so by the look on his face.
He may have looked like a sour puss on the outside, but he must have been doing cartwheels on the inside. The man who just didn’t seem able to pull a smile out of the bag, did manage to pull a win out of the bag, as the man from Buffalo became the champion of the Millionaire Maker.
The second largest tournament in the history of poker, and the largest outside of the WSOP Main Event, is over, and it’s Jonathan Dimmig who walks away with $1.3m in prize money after overcoming a final table that included the likes of Maurice Hawkins and Andrew Teng.
Unexpectedly, it would be Hawkins who would be the first to leave the final table when he ran pocket queens into the pocket kings of the overnight chip leader Stephen Graner. Graner had waltzed into the final table with a 3:1 chip lead, over the opposition, but lost that lead after a handful of hands, and was eventually eliminated in sixth place by the eventual winner Dimmig.
Andrew Teng was many people’s favorite for this title – included yours truly – but he bowed out in fourth place after moving all-in from the small blind, holding [Qc] [9c], and Dimmig called with deuces. The flop gave Teng the lead when a queen landed on her arse, but a third deuce thudded on the turn to leave Teng drawing dead, and he was out one card later.
Dimmig would go on to eliminate James Duke in third place, after his [Ah] [Ts] would find a ten on the turn to defeat [Qs] [8d], and a heads-up encounter with Jeffrey Coburn was settled.
Coburn entered the fray with the chip lead, but Graner would double up in the very first hand after his top two pair held against the top pair and flush draw of Coburn.
The final hand came after Coburn raised to 1.5m and Dimmig called. The flop was [3d] [3s] [2c], Dimmig moved all-in, holding [6h] [2h] for two pair, and Coburn called holding [Kh] [Qh] for the over cards. Neither the turn or river saw a lick of paint and Dimmig was left to celebrate amongst his family and friends on the rail.
Final Table Standings
1st. Jonathan Dimmig – $1,319,587
2nd. Jeffrey Coburn – $815,963
3rd. James Duke – $614,368
4th. Andrew Teng – $465,972
5th. Bradley Anderson – $355,913
6th. Stephen Graner – $273,854
7th. Jason Johnson – $211, 394
8th. Andrew Dick – $164,118
9th. Maurice Hawkins – $128,150
Jeff Smith and Brock Parker Pick up Gold
Jeff Smith has become the owner of a shiny gold bracelet after picking off Danny Nguyen in a three hour marathon in Event #9: $1,000 NLHE, and Brock Parker has won his third bracelet after defeating Richard ‘Chufty’ Ashby in the $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low event.
Parker stunned the world of poker, back in 2012, when he took down two NLHE WSOP bracelets just five days apart, meanwhile Ashby won his two years earlier in a Seven Card Stud event, and came mightily close to bagging his second with a runner-up finish in the $10k H.O.R.S.E Championship.
Female pros Shirley Rosario and Melissa Burr also made the final table. The overnight chip leader Viatcheslav Ortynskiy finished fifth.
The Best of the Rest
Mike Sowers, Justin Bonomo and Taylor Paur each have over a million in chips as the play closed down for the day with just 10-players left remaining in the hunt for the gold bracelet in Event #11: $1,500 Six-Handed NLHE.
Bonomo finished runner-up to Tuan Le in the $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball Championship and would dearly love to finally close one of these things out after coming so close on so many occasions.
David Martirosyan is the big chip leader in Event #12: $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em, after Day One came to a close. 557 players entered the event and only 69 remain including the likes of Joseph Cheong (67,200), Darryl Fish (49,500), Dylan Linde (43,000), Phil Collins (39,700) and Phil Ivey (31,300).
The $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship also got underway today, and at the time of writing 40-players were left from a starting field of 87 players, and Jennifer Harman was amongst the chip leaders in that one.
