EVENT #67: $10,000 buy-in Dealers Choice
ENTRIES: 108
PRIZE POOL: $1,015,200
FIRST PLACE PRIZE: $319,792
PLACES PAID: 12
DATES: July 3-5, 2015
Quin Do Does It Again
L.A. Poker Pro Scoops $319,792 and Second WSOP Gold Bracelet
Do Wins Inaugural $10K Dealers Choice Championship
MEET THE LATEST WSOP GOLD BRACELET CHAMPION
Name: Quin Do
Birthplace: Vietnam
Age: 39
Current Residence: El Monte, CA
Marital Status: Married
Children: 1
Number of WSOP Cashes: 17
Number of WSOP Final Table Appearances: 2
Number of WSOP Gold Bracelet Victories: 2
Best Previous WSOP Finish: 1st (2005)
Total WSOP Earnings: $707,507
[Note: All statistics above include the results of this tournament]
Quinn Do knows the secret to winning “Dealers Choice” tournaments.
According to him the secret is as follows: Don’t pick the games you are best at; Instead, pick the games your opponent(s) are the worst at.
That secret and strategy served him well. So is the latest gold bracelet winner at the 2015 World Series of Poker.
The 39-year-old poker pro from El Monte, CA topped one of the smallest, but most concentrated fields at this year’s series, conquering a blistering final table lineup of highly-accomplished adversaries on the way to winning his second gold bracelet victory.
The $10,000 buy-in Dealers Choice event was the last preliminary tournament before the start of the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event. A modest-sized field of 108 entries made for a seemingly easy path to win a WSOP victory, at least compared to the other much larger fields. However, the tournament attracted a “Who’s Who” of tournament poker. The highly-skilled lineup produced yet another prize pool in excess of $1 million, with the top 12 finishers collecting a payout.
Do’s share of the prize money came to $319,792, which wasn’t bad for three days of work. The victory marked a second career gold bracelet win for the poker pro from El Monte, CA. His first gold bracelet was won back in 2005 in a Limit Hold’em tourney. He’s now posted 17 career cashes. This victory nearly doubles his lifetime series’ earnings.
As for his tournament strategy playing Dealers Choice, Do later admitted that he stumbled into the idea of calling the worst games for opponents rather than his own best games.
“On Day One, I noticed that some of the players did not play some games very well, so I called those games,” Do said. “I kept with that strategy. It was working, so why change it?”
Do, born in Vietnam regularly plays high-stakes mixed games. Hence, the Dealers Choice format was something he was not just comfortable with, but highly-experienced at. Do normally plays poker at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles and the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
“Winning this gold bracelet was better than the first,” Do said. “This one was for Mixed Games which is something I have worked on for a long time. I spent ten years playing these games so to come here and win for this event is really better for me.”
As expected, the final table included a stacked lineup of well-known players and former gold bracelet winners – including Do, Rep Porter (who finished 2nd), Jeff Madsen, David Benyamine, Adam Friedman, and Paul Volpe. Non-former winners included Jake Abdalla and Jussi Nevanlinna.
Among the remaining players who finished in the money was David Chiu, finishing 9th. The Chinese-born poker pro now living in Las Vegas is a five-time gold bracelet winner, but he ended up bubbling the final table.
Following Do’s finish in the top spot, the descending order of Top-8 results was as follows:
Second Place: Rep Porter, from Woodinville, WA finished in 2nd place. He was short stacked towards the end of the tourney and couldn’t put a dent in the eventual winner’s huge chip stack. Porter, a two-time gold bracelet winner making his seventh cash of this series, earned $197,608 as the runner up.
Third Place: Jeff Madsen, a four-time gold bracelet winner and the 2005 WSOP “Player of the Year,” finished in 3rd place. The Los Angeles-area poker pro earned $129,651.
Fourth Place: Jake Abdalla, from Las Vegas, NV finished 4th. He collected a payout of $89,114 in what was his third time to cash at the WSOP.
Fifth Place: Adam Friedman, from Ohio, finished in 5th place. He earned $63,277. Friedman won his gold bracelet back in 2012. This was his cash of the summer.
Sixth Place: Jussi Nevanlinna, from Helsinki, Finland took 6th place. He collected $46,384 in prize money. This marked his fifth time to cash at the series and second final table appearance.
Seventh Place: David Benyamine, originally from France and now licingin Henderson, NV finished in 7th place, which paid $35,065. Benyamine, now with 28 cashes and in excess of $2.1 million in WSOP earnings, won a gold bracelet back in 2008.
Eighth Place: Paul Volpe, from Philadelphia, rounded out the unofficial final table as the 8th-place finisher. He collected $35,065. This marked his sixth cash for the summer series and fourth final table appearance. Volpe won his gold bracelet last year.
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