YUE GETS HIS DUE ....YUE DU WINS $5K NLHE GOLD BRACELET AT 2016 WSOP

ALAN DU WINS $5,000 BUY-IN NO-LIMIT HOLD’EM EVENT

Chinese investor collects $800,586 top prize in Event #59

Latest WSOP champion demolishes final table – knocks out all eight players

Du becomes first gold bracelet winner in history from Peoples Republic of China

Canadian Michael Gentili finishes as runner up

 
MEET THE LATEST WSOP GOLD BRACELET CHAMPION

Name:  Yue (Alan) Du
Birthplace:  Chongqing City, China
Age:  48
Current Residence:   Chongqing City, China
Marital Status:  Married
Children:  1
Profession:  Venture Investor
Number of WSOP Cashes:  2
Number of WSOP Final Table Appearances:  1
Number of WSOP Gold Bracelet Victories (with this tournament):  1
Best Previous WSOP Finish:  210th (2016)
Total WSOP Earnings:  $803,590
Personal Facts:  Full-time businessman / Plays cash games in Asia

 

Yue “Alan” Du is the newest member of poker’s gold bracelet club.

The 48-year-old venture capitalist and investor without much of a tournament resume prior to this day won one of the toughest tournaments in all of poker -- the $5,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tourney.  The competition was played over four days and three nights and concluded on the ESPN main stage at the Rio in Las Vegas. 

Du collected $800,586 in prize money, making this the biggest poker win of his career.

Du won his victory by coming out on top at a final table which included some tough competition – perhaps most notably German pro Dominik Nitsche, who was seeking his fourth career gold bracelet.  However, Du made things look too easy.  He dominated the final few days of play and obliterated everyone in his path.  Du not only came into the final day with about half of the chips in play, he managed to knock out every player at the table.

The final moment of triumph came when Du scooped the final pot of the tournament against Michael Gentili, a Canadian player who finished as the runner up.  Du had his final adversary dominated with ace-seven versus ace-deuce and won the pot with a pair of jacks, along with the 7 kicker playing as the fifth card to a completed board of Q-J-6-J-3 of mixed suits.

With this victory, Du becomes the first actual resident of the Peoples Republic of China to ever win a gold bracelet.  China has certainly produced several great players who have immigrated to the U.S. and gone on to achieve major success at the WSOP – most notably Johnny Chan (actually from Hong Kong) and David Chiu.  However, no one before Du had ever captured poker’s most prestigious prize with the intention of taking the gold bracelet back to China.

This tourney attracted 863 entrants which created a prize pool totaling $4,056,100.  The top 130 finishers collected prize money.

The makeup of the event also included quite an international cast.  The list of countries represented among the top dozen finishers sounded like the security council at the United Nations – with China, Canada, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Belgium, Australia, Russia, and the United States each represented with at least one player.
Aside from the winner, here’s a brief report of the other top finishers who made the final table:

Second Place:  Michael Gentili, from LaSalle, ON (Canada) previously won a WSOP Circuit gold ring earlier this year at Montreal, Quebec.  He’s also cashed two times at this year’s series.  However, he’s banked nothing like this score before, which paid $494,586 as the runner up.

Third Place:  Natasha Barbour, from Tampa, FL is a former WSOP Circuit gold ring winner.  She’s also come in second in a WSOP event and had 11 cashes before this impressive showing.  Barbour ended up in third place, which paid $348,374.  This was her biggest win at the WSOP, to date.

Fourth Place:  Dominik Nitsche, at 25, a top German pro who now lives in London, UK, came in fourth place.  He’s previously won three gold bracelets – in 2012, 2013, and 2014 (including the WSOP National Championship).  Nitsche had to settle for a nice payout totaling $248,640, but no fourth WSOP title.

Fifth Place:  Ismael Bojang, a German poker pro residing in Vienna, Austria came in fifth place.  He’s enjoyed a strong summer series, with nine cashes, so far.  Bojang collected $179,923 in his first final table appearance since last year’s WSOP Europe.  Bojang now has 41 in-the-money finishes at the WSOP.

Sixth Place:  Marius Gierse, from Germany, posted his first WSOP cash ever in this tournament.  He collected $132,030.

Seventh Place:  Matt O’Donnell, from Lutz, FL won a gold bracelet last year ($2,500 buy-in NLHE).  He was one of two former gold bracelet winners to make the final table.  However, O’Donnell went out fairly early.  Still, in what amounted to his sixth series cash, he pocketed $98,269 in prize money.

Eighth Place:  Sertac Turker, a businessman from Izmir, Turkey became the first final table player from that nation at this year’s series.  Turker ended up coming in eighth, which paid $74,201.  This was his first time to cash at the WSOP.

Ninth Place:  Arne Coulier, a student from Nieuwpoort, Belgium raises chickens.  He also plays pretty good poker, proven by his second cash at this year’s series.  Coulier finished 21st in the Crazy Eights tournament and followed that up by final tabling for the first time in this event.  He collected more than just chicken feed, in the amount of $56,851.

This was the 59th official event on this year’s schedule.  This leaves 10 gold bracelet events still to go at the 2016 WSOP.


OTHER NOTABLE IN-THE MONEY FINISHERS:  

Upeshka De Silva, a gold bracelet winner (2015), finished in 22nd place.

Byron Kaverman, a gold bracelet winner (2015), came in 30th.

Ofer Zvi Stern, one of last year’s November Nine (finished fifth), took 48th place in this tournament.

Keith Lehr, a two-time gold bracelet winner (2003, 2015), finished in 52nd place.

Jean “Prince” Gaspard, who won a gold bracelet at this year’s series ($10K Dealers Choice), came in 60th place.

Patrick Bruel, a gold bracelet winner (1998) who is also one of the most popular singers and actors in France, finished in 64th place.

Ryan Riess, a gold bracelet winner and the 2013 world poker champion, finished 70th.

Andrew Lichtenberger, who won his first WSOP gold bracelet only a week earlier, came in 73rd.

Martin Jacobson, a gold bracelet winner who was also the 2014 world poker champion, came in 73rd.

Bryn Kenney, a gold bracelet winner (2014), took 102nd place.


FUN FACTS:

The ages of participants ranged from 21 to 91.  The eldest player in the field was Danut Chisu, from Romania.

The breakdown of player nationalities for this event was 487 Americans and 376 players from elsewhere.  The top five nations represented were the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France, and Australia.  This was the highest percentage of non-Americans in any event played thus far at this year’s series.

The breakdown of participants by gender was 96.7 percent males and 3.3 percent females.


EVENT DIRECT LINKS:

For this event’s official final results (listing all players who finished in-the-money), please visit:
http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/results.asp?grid=1232&tid=14959

For Alan Du’s official player profile page, please visit:
http://www.wsop.com/players/playerprofile.asp?playerID=219702

For the live reporting logs for this event, please visit:
http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/updates.asp?grid=1232&tid=14959

To access licensed images from this all other 2016 WSOP gold bracelet events, please visit:
www.pokerphotoarchive.com

For the live stream archive of this event, please visit:
http://www.wsop.com/videos/?vcat=2
(Note: Will appear 48 hours after event concludes)