Six events down, 25 to go. On Monday night, Nathan “surfbum” Gamble won the first non-Hold’em event on the 2020 World Series of Poker Online slate, a 12-hour marathon of $600 Pot-Limit O8 Six-Max. For his triumph over 832 other entries, Gamble won $89,424.21 and his second career bracelet.
Gamble’s first bracelet came in 2017 (when the WSOP was actually live and in person at the Rio!) in the $1,500 Pot-Limit O8 event, good for $223,339. We are sensing a pattern here.
He reached the final table in the middle of the pack with about 1.7 million chips. It was a far cry from the stack of John “rainman3817” Esposito, though, who had an intimidating stack of 5.1 million. Shane “danish01” Daniels was positioned in between the two with 2.9 million chips.
Gamble’s first big move came when he eliminated Tom “hansdigalo” Schwartz in fourth place. Gamble opened the betting with a raise to 320,000 and Schwartz three-bet to 1.120 million. On the flop of Ks-Th-Qs, Schwartz shoved for 1.8 million and Gamble quickly called. Schwartz held As-Ah-6d-5c for not really much but an overpair, while Gamble had Ac-Qd-Th-2s for two pair. The next two cards were low, improving neither hand, and Schwartz was out of the tournament while Gamble’s stack shot up to 8.1 million.
He then proceeded to knockout Esposito to go into heads-up play against Daniels with an enormous 10.1 million to 1.5 million chip lead.
Daniels did pull his chip up to 4.4 million to narrow the gap, but he couldn’t get over the hump. On the final hand, the two players raised until Daniels was all-in with Kh-Kc-Qc-Qd and Gamble called with As-Td-5s-3h. The flop was Js-7d-6s, giving Gamble a gutshot straight draw. The 5d paired one of Gamble’s cards, but it was the 4d on the river that did it for him, completing his straight and earning Gamble his second WSOP bracelet.
Nathan Gamble is an army veteran now living in Hawaii, hence his “surfbum” screen name. After he won his first bracelet in 2017, he reflected on poker and life, saying that the key to a balanced life is “just having the ability to realize that poker isn’t everything.”
“It’s the people around you,” he said. “It’s about everywhere you end up in life that you are able to make a difference at. So, hopefully I can make a difference after this.”
Up next at the 2020 WSOP Online is Event #7: $800 No-Limit Hold’em Knockout Deepstack. It will begin right about when this article is posted, at 3:00pm PT/6:00pm ET. Ten minutes before game time, there are nearly 200 players registered, but late registration is available for four hours, so that number should climb significantly.
2020 World Series of Poker Online Event #6 Final Table Results
- Nathan “surfbum” Gamble – $89,424
- Shane “danish01” Daniels – $55,283
- John “rainman3817” Esposito – $38,685
- Tom “hansdigalo” Schwartz – $27,484
- Timothy “SSJTimmy” Batow – $19,792
- Simon “bagelbites” Lam – $14,484