2009 $50,000 Poker Players Champion proves mixed game prowess by winning second bracelet in another mixed event
June 7, 2017 (Las Vegas, NV) - David Bach put on a poker clinic on Wednesday night en route to his second World Series of Poker bracelet. Bach, who made a name for himself to mainstream poker fans in 2009 by winning the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, earned $119,399 for his second WSOP bracelet after defeating a field of 364 players in the $1,500 Dealers Choice event.
Bach put his mixed games prowess on display once again by dominating the final table. He entered the six-handed final table as the only player with more than 1 million in chips and had nearly triple his closest competitor. Bach seemed to run away with the title, as nobody ever came close to putting his second bracelet in jeopardy.
In just over four hours of play, Bach had finished off the competition and defeated Kevin Iacofano heads-up to secure his win.
"Really, I'm in shock," said Bach after his win. "The final table went way faster than I thought it would. I was prepared for a long battle. It feels thrilling, especially to start off the World Series like this."
Aside from his win in '09 for more than $1.2 million, Bach has been in position for his second piece of WSOP jewelry several time and came up short. To get finally break through and enter the more elite group of players with multiple bracelets is almost like a monkey off Bach's back.
"You know, I had three second places and to get that second bracelet is really nice," said Bach. "Especially in a game like Dealers Choice, where I feel like I play mixed games all the time. This is like one of the best tournaments to win."
The Georgia native is a true pro's pro that takes pride in playing all of the games well. Over the course of his entire career, he's secured WSOP cashes in 10 different variants of the game with his two bracelet coming in events where he was forced to play multiple games throughout the tournament.
His background in mixed cash games helped him develop competency in many different poker variations and ultimately helped him stay abreast of newer games that were being picked at Wednesday's final table.
"I play cash games when it's non-World Series time," said Bach. "I play mixed cash all the time and that really helped me because I've gotten much more competent in the draw games as they have become more popular and that's a large part of the Dealers Choice."
In a typical rotation like HORSE or 8-game, players know what games they are going to play and when they are going to play them. In Dealers Choice, however, players switch the game every orbit, with a different player picking each game.
The Dealers Choice format offered a different dynamic than other events. Bach took advantage of the dynamic to call games that he saw players making mistakes in, while simultaneously putting pressure on the much shorter stacks at the table.
"Normally, I would call more stud games," said Bach. "But I saw a lot of mistakes in Badacey and then the stack sizes started to really matter as I had a really dominant chip lead. It was good to call some games where I could push people around. Especially towards the end when it was four-handed and three people had kind of short stacks.
"I wanted a game where I could win a little bit from all three of them at a time, while they are worried about moving up the pay ladder."
While he found players making mistakes in Badacey, there was a new draw game thrown into the Dealers Choice mix this year that Bach found to be one of the more important games in the mix.
"One of the key games was pot-limit triple draw," said Bach. "Which is a crazy big game. I won a gigantic pot off of Steve Billirakis on Day 1 to get chips at the beginning of the tournament. When we played it at the final table, I think I was just kind of less scared of it than the other players and I think that really helped."
Even though Bach's victory was almost never in jeopardy, he felt that the key hand he played at the final table was a pot-limit triple draw hand against Christopher Sensoli, who finished in third place for $47,629.
"It's a really interesting game," said Bach. "The hand that I played against [Sensoli] was a really key hand. I made a nine-seven and got a value bet in on the river."
Sensoli eventually busted in third and it didn't take long for Bach to finish Iacofano in second. Iacofano earned $73,779 for his runner-up finish.
Scott Milkey finished in fourth for $31,550, Anthony Arvidson finished fifth for $21,460 and Wook Kim rounded out the bottom half of the final table in sixth for $14,998.
The final day of action kicked off at 2 p.m. with nine players remaining. Brandon Cantu was looking to secure his third bracelet, but finished in eighth place and Chip Jett bubbled the official final table in seventh. Both Cantu and Jett earned $10,779.
Full Results
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Final Table Results:
1st: David Bach - $119,399
2nd: Kevin Iacofano - $73,779
3rd: Christopher Sensoli - $47,629
4th: Scott Milkey - $31,550
5th: Anthony Arvidson - $21,460
6th: Wook Kim - $14,998