WSOPE: Hanh Tran Wins €550 PLO 8-Handed for Second Bracelet of 2018
Hanh Tran has won his second WSOP bracelet of the year in Event #3: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed. At the final table, Tran defeated Oleg Pavlyuchuk heads up to win €59,625 and the coveted prize. Romain Lewis of France finished in third place. Florian Sarnow, second in last night's Turbo Bounty Hunter, was the first to leave the final table in eight place.
“I’m just here for vacation, have fun with my friends, and party!” said Tran this summer, back when he won his first WSOP gold bracelet in Event #29: $1,500 2-7 Triple Draw. The easy-going nature of the Austrian hasn't changed one bit and today, the same calm stood out as he claimed another career-defining win.
He defeated Pavlyuchuk heads-up after overcoming a 5:1 chip deficit, reminiscent of his first bracelet win where he was able to claw himself back from an even steeper hole.
"I know if I would double-up, I could beat him," Tran explained. "I'm experienced with being the underdog; in Vegas, I was a huge underdog too."
”Tournaments are only for fun or wasting time."
Despite winning two WSOP bracelets in the span of four months, don't call him a tournament player. Tran is still first and foremost a cash gamer.
"Tournaments are only for fun or wasting time," he grinned.
While Tran might be keeping up appearances as a cash game player, his second taste of bracelet gold has left him hungry for more. He's eyeing the €2,200 Pot-Limit Omaha bracelet event, that starts in a few days, and the Main Event might be on tap too.
"Now, I want a third bracelet. I'm going to play more.” he admitted.
Perhaps there's a tournament player hidden in Tran after all. And if he, in spite of his accomplishments, still considers tournaments "just for fun," winning multiple WSOP gold bracelets seems like a pretty good way to go at it.
Official Final Table Results - Event #3: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha 8
| Place | Player | Country | Prize in € | Prize in $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hanh Tran | Austria | €59,625 | $68,365 |
| 2 | Oleg Pavlyuchuk | Latvia | €36,851 | $42,242 |
| 3 | Romain Lewis | France | €25,473 | $29,201 |
| 4 | Sebastian Obermeier | Germany | €17,095 | $20,525 |
| 5 | Tarek Sleiman | Chile | €12,802 | $14,675 |
| 6 | Manish Goenka | India | €9,313 | $10,676 |
| 7 | Michael Magalashvili | Israel | €6,896 | $7,906 |
| 8 | Florian Sarnow | Germany | €5,198 | $5,959 |
Tran was driven to perform in this tournament, due to a promise he made to a friend of him: Andreas Klatt. Klatt won this very tournament at the 2017 WSOP Europe but couldn't make it this year. Tran had to step up to keep the bracelet streak within the group of friends going.
"I told him from the beginning: ‘if you're not coming, I have to win it for you.’ And I did! That's funny," he laughed.
Final Day Action of Event #3: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed
At 3 p.m. local time, the 8 remaining players out of a 572-strong field gathered to play down to a winner and claim the biggest slices the €274,417 prize pool had to offer. Eyes at the start were locked on Florian Sarnow, who etched his name in World Series of Poker history by becoming the first player to make two WSOP final tables in a single day.
Earlier this day, at 5:30 a.m. to be precise, Sarnow got eliminated in second place in the single day €1,100 Turbo Bounty Hunter and nearly missed out on a bracelet. He would get a second shot in Pot-Limit Omaha a few hours later, but that attempt lasted only for two hands. In the first hand, Sarnow lost a chunk to Hanh Tran, then dropped the rest to Oleg Pavlyuchuk.
”I told [Andreas Klatt] from the beginning: ‘if you're not coming, I have to win it for you.’ And I did!
The popular Michael Magalashvili had many on the rail rooting for him, but the last Israeli standing couldn't do what two of his fellow countrymen did in the days before: win a bracelet. Short stacked, Magalashvili stuck it in with an ace-king-jack-five against Sebastian Obermeier, who turned top set with his kings to end the Israeli’s bracelet bid in seventh.
Manish Goenka and Tarek Sleiman quickly followed Magalashvili out the door. True to the spirit of 'The Great Game', as Pot-Limit Omaha is affectionally known, Sleiman ran a big blocker bluff but walked right into Pavlyuchuk's nut straight to be left with crumbs.
Four-handed play lasted for a bit and it was during that time that Pavlyuchuk made a huge fold. On a flop with two queens and two spades, Pavlyuchuk had flopped an open-ended straight flush draw and wrap, but once put to the test by Tran he decided to lay down the monster draw. Tran had a queen and would've flipped against Pavlyuchuk's hand. Had the Latvian called, the outcome of the tournament could've been much different.
Sebastian Obermeier was ultimately the one to finish in fourth place and lost his chips to Romain Lewis, who grabbed the chip lead shortly after. However, stacks were extremely shallow at this point and Pavlyuchuk was able to climb back up and eliminate Lewis in two hands. In the first, Pavlyuchuk held up with aces in a three-bet pot against a flush draw, then Lewis jammed everything he had into Pavlyuchuk's rivered full house to bust in third.
Heads-up, Pavlyuchuk started with a 5:1 lead but like in Las Vegas earlier, Tran got back into it by winning several all-ins in short succession. After winning the first two, the third all-in was the first time Pavlyuchuk was at risk. The Latvian held kings on a queen-seven-six flop but Tran showed him a hand containing seven-six for two pair. The turn and river were blanks and Tran could celebrate his second bracelet win.
That's it for PokerNews for Event #3. Live coverage will be on the floor right up until the end on November 2 with start-to-finish coverage of the six remaining bracelet events so check back regularly for all live updates from King's Casino in Rozvadov!
