In an event stacked with bracelet winners, the first $10,000 buy-in event of the series came down to two players on the short list of best players without a bracelet—Tuan Le and Justin Bonomo. While both certainly had a lot to brag about making it so far in a field so stacked, in the end it was Tuan Le who prevailed, while Justin Bonomo had to settle for a runner-up finish.
If you only got into poker in the past year or two, you might not recognize the name Tuan Le. If you’ve been following the game since the poker boom though, it is a name you’ll probably never forget. Nearly a decade ago, Tuan Le was one of the young hotshots of the game, winning multiple titles, making deep runs in events, and seeming to succeed just about everywhere except the WSOP. In the years since then, Le has continued to play, he puts up results, but keeps a low profile. In fact, successful as he is at the game, prior to today, he had never made a WSOP final table. This evening though, he took care of that, not to mention his first bracelet.
“This was my first time playing this particular event,” Le said, to some surprise. “I’ve been playing Deuce-to-Seven for a while, but this was my first time to play it here at the World Series. I really have not played that many events here in the past, but this year I decided to just give it a shot and go for it.”
At a final table stacked with some of the best Triple Draw players in the world, Le prevailed, defeating Justin Bonomo heads-up to take the prestigious bracelet and more than $350,000. It is a landmark victory for a player who has shown his best poker days are certainly not behind him. In fact, at 36 years old, this pro might just be getting started.
“This final table was as tough as it could possibly be,” Le said afterward. “I seemed to get on the right side of every hand and got maximum value for it.”
This was the first of 13 Championship tier events with $10,000 buy-ins. The tournament, which was not offered last year, drew 120 players and produced a $1,128,000 prize pool. The top 12 in the money finishers read like a list of who’s who in the poker world. Over half of them already had bracelets and only two of them, Le and Alexandre Luneau, did not have a final table appearance at the WSOP prior to today. Of those, seven had bracelets coming in, including Eli Elezra, who was looking to go back-to-back in the triple draw events after besting Daniel Negreanu in the $2,500 version of this event last year. Elezera didn’t repeat but he did finish in third, while two-time bracelet winners Nick Schulman and Phil Galfond exited in fourth and sixth respectively.Here are the final table results for the $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Championship:1st: Tuan Le - $355,3242nd: Justin Bonomo - $219,5653rd: Eli Elezra - $144,0564th: Nick Schulman - $99,0155th: George Danzer - $70,3086th: Phil Galfond - $51,538