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Ari Engel and Jonathan Tamayo added another ring to a plentiful collection, while David Pham proved old school pros can still compete with main event win

Los Angeles, CA (16 March 2018) - The World Series of Poker Circuit finished up its most recent stop at the Bicycle Hotel and Casino on Wednesday wrap up both an exciting series and the last stop of the season in California. Ari Engel (pictured) and Jonathan Tamayo each added a ring to an already plentiful collection in two games that they are self admittedly not very sharp in.

Engel won his ninth ring in the $365 Omaha Hi-Lo event to move into a tie with Alex Masek, Josh Reichard and Robert Hankins for second on the all-time list with nine rings a piece. Engel claimed he dabbled in pot-limit Omaha hi-lo online, but that his limit game was not very sharp. He defeated 108 entries and earned $9,730 for his efforts. With one more Circuit victory, he will move into a tie with Maurice Hawkins and Valentin Vornicu for the all-time ring lead.

Tamayo won the only other Omaha event on the schedule, the $580 pot-limit Omaha. Tamayo defeated 54 entries and netted $10,120 but said after the win that he hasn’t played a hand of pot-limit Omaha in over two years. The lack of recent experience didn’t stop him from picking up his fourth career ring after beating local grinder, Paul Lui, heads-up.

Engel and Tamayo won rings in games that they don’t play very often, but David Pham earned himself a seat into the 2018 Global Casino Championship through a win in a game he’s had a ton of experience playing. Pham won the $1,675 no-limit hold’em main event. Pham is a borderline legend of the game and has been playing poker professionally for nearly two decades.

He earned $216,790 for beating a 705-entry field in the stop’s marquee event. The win continued a trend of recent success for the man nicknamed ‘The Dragon.’ The week prior to the series at the Bike, he won a major tournament in Las Vegas for over $200,000 and won his third bracelet last summer at the Rio. This was his first Circuit ring and adds to a long list of accomplishments for the native of Vietnam.

Hermilo Vargas and Matthew Lambrecht each picked up their second career Circuit rings over the 12-day series. Vargas won the $365 no-limit hold’em monster stack re-entry event for the second consecutive Circuit stop at the Bike. Last December, he won the monster stack for $71,195 and in the second event of the most recent stop, he defeated 1,317 entries, the largest field of the tournament, to earn $86,270. Vargas is a local grinder, who’s entire WSOP resume is made up of cashes at the Bike.

Lambrecht picked up his second ring in a smaller field, but a much larger buy-in. He won the event with the largest buy-in of the series, the $3,250 no-limit hold’em high roller for $85,440. It’s his first ring since a $365 no-limit hold’em turbo win in Hammond 18 months ago and is the biggest score of his career by a wide margin. He didn’t have an easy road to get to his second ring with Jim Collopy, Mohsin Charania, Jesse Yaginuma, Ryan Van Sanford and the aforementioned Engel and Tamayo all at that final table as well.

The rest of the series was filled with first time ring winners. Some were local regulars that were taking down their first event, but some were established pros that just hadn’t broken through for their first Circuit title.

Greg Gibson won the first event of the series, a $365 no-limit hold’em event in the first WSOP-branded event he’s ever taken part in. The retried decorator from Southern California didn’t stop after his $24,705 win. He final tabled the very next event he played, the $365 no-limit hold’em monster stack re-entry. Gibson finished fourth in the monster stack and played nearly five consecutive days of tournament poker before finally being eliminated from an event.

With his two consecutive final tables and one win, Gibson opened up an early lead for the Casino Championship title, but was eventually overtaken by Ryan Buckholtz. Buckholtz won another $365 no-limit hold’em event, but then followed it up with a fourth-place finish in the $365 no-limit hold’em six-max event and the $580 no-limit hold’em turbo event. With three final tables and a win in just under two weeks, Buckholtz joins Pham as the two 2018 GCC qualifiers from this stop.

JJ De La Garza won the $580 no-limit hold’em and Matthew Elsby won the final $365 no-limit hold’em of the series Both are local pros, but tend to play cash games and fly under the radar. De La Garza is a cash game pro that is also a voice on the Bike’s livestreamed cash game, while Elsby makes his living playing limit hold’em. He generally plays mid-high stakes limit hold’em cash games in Los Angeles, but already had a fair amount of tournament experience. He won a bracelet in 2015 in the $3,000 limit hold’em six-max event for $230,799.

Mike Shariati and Pat Lyons each won a ring on the last day of the series. They both scored their first ring on the final day of play and they were both already well-known in the poker world. Shariati won a major title at the Bike a couple years ago and Lyons is a professional gambler from the Bay Area that plays in tournaments all over the country.

Shariati won the $1,125 no-limit hold’em bounty event and the genetic engineer won $17,405. Lyons won the very last ring of the series in the $580 no-limit hold’em turbo for $17,365. Adam Singer rounds out the list of ring winners. The retired doctor won the $365 no-limit hold’em six-max just as Day 1A of the main event was starting.

The next two stops that are already underway. The stop at Harrah’s Atlantic City is entering its final weekend and the Tulsa Hard Rock stop is hitting its first weekend of play.