Poker legend Erik Seidel won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in 1992. He won his eighth and last in 2007. It has been a long bracelet draught for the Poker Hall of Famer, but that draught ended Tuesday, as Seidel won Event #11: $10,000 Super MILLION$ High Roller of the 2021 WSOP Online on GGPoker. It was a massive cash injection, too, as he won $977,842.
Seidel might be most famous for finishing second to Johnny Chan in the 1988 World Series of Poker Main Event. Of course, we in the poker world know the legend for much more than that, but the moment was immortalized in the movie Rounders, so outside those who follow poker, Seidel is the foil for Chan in an important scene in the film.
He has a come a long way since then. A long way. Seidel is now tied with Johnny Moss with nine WSOP bracelets, behind only Phil Hellmuth, who has an ungodly 15, and the trio of Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, and Chan with ten each.
As one might guess, considering this was his first WSOP win since 2007, this was also Seidel’s first-ever online WSOP bracelet. And as he admitted on Twitter, online really isn’t his thing:
Seidel had come close to capturing his ninth bracelet on several occasions before now, with many deep runs and a bunch of final table appearances. His closest attempt was in 2015 when he finished fourth in the $10,000 2-7 Single Draw Championship.
He was just seventh in chips going into the nine-handed final table, but he caught up quickly, taking the lead after about 30 minutes. But this is poker and no lead was safe. With four players remaining, Seidel was the short stack, though he was still in decent shape in terms of stack size.
It got down to three when Francisco Benitez raised preflop with Queens and was fortunate enough to watch Shyngis Satubayev move all-in with Tens. Benitez called and won the hand without much of a sweat.
Benitez had a massive chip lead after that and it only got bigger after he eliminated Thomas Muehloecker in third place to take a 4-to-1 lead over Seidel going into heads-up play. Seidel quickly doubled-up with Queens versus Jacks, a pot that gave him momentum that he rode to a 2-to-1 chip lead just a few hands later.
On the final hand, the two men got into a raising war pre-flop until all the chips were in the middle. Seidel had A-8 of hearts, but Benitez had A-K to dominate. The flop gave Seidel two hearts, though, and the turn a third to give him the flush and the title.
Event #11: $10,000 Super MILLION$ High Roller – Final Table Results
- Erik Seidel – $977,842
- Francisco Benitez – $759,418
- Thomas Muehloecker – $589,785
- Shyngis Satubayev – $458,043
- Chin-wei Chien – $355,728
- Joachim Haraldstad – $276,268
- Claas Segebrecht – $214,557
- Isaac Baron – $166,631
- Rui Ferreira – $129,410
