JOHN GALE WINS TURBO BRACELET AND $298K
JOHN GALE WINS THE TURBO BRACELET AND $298K

John Gale wins his second gold bracelet and the first one for the Brits this year.

MEET THE LATEST WSOP GOLD BRACELET WINNER:

Name: John Gale
Age: 61
Residence: Bushey, England
Birthplace: London, England
Occupation: Retired
Marital Status: Married
Children: 4
Number of WSOP Cashes: 10
Number of WSOP final table appearances: 3
Number of WSOP gold bracelet victories: 2
Best previous WSOP finish: 1st (2006 $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em)
Total WSOP earnings: $954,900

The above stats include Gale's Event #18 victory

 
TOURNAMENT RECAP:

Las Vegas (June 8, 2015) — The fast paced turbo event has concluded with John Gale defeating Gary Luther heads up for the 18th bracelet of the series. As expected, the tournament was able to wrap up in just two days of play, even with a massive turnout of 1,791 players. Gale will take home the first place prize money of $298,290 and his second career gold bracelet. This marks Gale's 10th WSOP cash and third career final table. His WSOP earnings are now just shy of a million with $954,900 in tournament earnings
 
Gale's first bracelet came back in 2006 when won the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em event. He won that bracelet one year after finishing runner-up in a Pot-Limit Hold'em event for his first ever WSOP cash. He becomes the first Brit to win a bracelet this year and sixth international player to win one. Last year the Brits earned just one bracelet, which was won by John Kabbaj in the O8/Stud 8 event. Joining Gale at the final table was fellow Englishman, Stuart Rutter. Rutter ended up being eliminated in fifth place by Gale. Gale then went on to knock out the remainder of his opponents on his path to the gold bracelet.
 
"It is still incredible. I cannot believe it, I am over the moon," said Gale about winning a second gold bracelet.
 
The first bracelet will always be special to Gale because it was the first, but winning the second one brought just as much excitement, if not more to Gale. Gale said that he has a full schedule of events planned for the duration of the series and that he cannot wait to get back on the felt. He hopes to play in tomorrow's $1k No-Limit Hold'em event and maybe earn himself a third gold bracelet.
 
This is now the second time Gale has cashed at the 2015 series. Before these two cashes, the Rio has not seen much of Gale in the recent years. His last previous cash before this year was in 2007 in a $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em event. Now that Gale is back, expect to see a lot more of him and a lot of strong results from the two-time bracelet winner. When he was playing in the mid-2000s, Gale cashed in bunches, racking up eight cashes from 2005-2007.
 
This turbo event featured 30 minute levels on Day 1 and 40 minute levels on Day 2. It is the only turbo event on the 2015 schedule. Earlier in the series there was a Hyper Hold'em event that featured even faster levels. That tournament was won by John Reading. Standard WSOP tournaments have 60 minute levels.

This year’s turbo event enjoyed an attendance increase of more than 30 percent over last year. The 1,791-player field generated a prize pool of $1,611,900 that paid the top 198 finishers. Those to cash but fall short of the final table included all-time Circuit wins leader Alex Masek (188th, $1,821), Justin Zaki (132nd, $1,982), bracelet winners Brent Hanks (123rd, $2,192) and John Reading (46th, $4,948), Sorel Mizzi (104th, $2,192), two-time bracelet winner Chris Bjorin (101st, $2,192), Colossus third-place finisher Ray Henson (95th, $2,450), Wisconsin’s Joe Kuether (26th, $8,704), five-time Circuit ring winner Mark “Pegasus” Smith (21st, $8,704) and Adam Bilzerian (12th, $17,053).

Day 1 of the event kicked off Sunday, June 7 at noon PT and by about 9:30 p.m., the field was in the money. Play wrapped a few hours later just after 2 a.m. with 29 players remaining. Day 2 resumed the following day at 1 p.m. and play concluded at around 10 p.m.

Here’s a look at the final table results:

1st: John Gale - $298,290 + WSOP gold bracelet
2nd: Gary Luther - $184,481
3rd: Matthew Vessier - $127,549
4th: Andrew "Bruce" Le - $91,991
5th: Stuart Rutter - $67,248
6th: Nitesh Rawtani - $49,807
7th: Mark Darner - $37,379
8th: Sean Rice - $28,417
9th: Tim Finne - $21,873

EVENT FUN FACTS:
  • John Gale was the only gold bracelet winner at the final table while Nitesh Rawtani, Matthew Vessier, Gary Luther had never recorded a WSOP cash
  • The 1,791-player starting field was comprised of individuals from 51 different countries (1,413 U.S. players, 378 international)
  • The average age of a participant was 38 years nine months old
EVENT DIRECT LINKS:

Gale’s official WSOP player profile page is available HERE.

Final results, live reporting log, photos and official winner photo are available HERE.

Live stream archive of the event is available HERE.