Yan R.Chen was the winner of the $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw Lowball event at the 2010 World Series of Poker. It marked his first career WSOP gold bracelet victory. The poker pro from Irvine, CA collected $92,817 for first place. This was Chen’s third WSOP final table appearance within the past two years. He had a third-place finish in a similar Lowball event held last year, and a fifth-place showing in the Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split World Championship. In fact, he cashed four times last year.Chen is a 45-year-old married father of two boys. He started playing poker seriously about 12 years ago. Chen has several cashes at various tournaments in California and Nevada. But this was his first major tournament victory.This was the first $1,500 buy-in Lowball tournament with the Deuce-to-Seven Draw variant held at the WSOP. Turnout proved to be a success as there were 250 entries – a relatively large field given that this form of poker is rarely played inside most cardrooms. Aside from the WSOP, there are virtually no Deuce-to-Seven Lowball events played anywhere.The top 28 finishers collected prize money. The runner up was former WSOP gold bracelet winner Mike Wattel (1999 Omaha High-Low Split), from Mesa, AZ. Several former WSOP gold bracelet finishers cashed in this event, including Alexander Kravchenko (7th), Chris Bjorin (13th), Erik Seidel (14th), Keith Lehr (16th), and Jose-Luis Velador (24th).It’s also noteworthy that Peter Gelencser, from Budapest, Hungary cashed in this tournament. He finished in 23rd place. Gelenscer is fast establishing himself as a top Lowball player. He won the No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Lowball “Triple” Draw gold bracelet four days ago.
A full report will be posted soon.
For a recap of the results and standings, please CLICK HERE.