Dan Smith Gets Monkey Off His Back with First WSOP Bracelet

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) awarded three more bracelets over the weekend to bring the total number up to five players who found WSOP glory early in the festival at the Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas.

Poker legend Dan Smith (lead image) finally got the monkey off his back and won his first career bracelet in Event #6: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship after defeating Christoph Vogelsang during the final heads-up match for $509,717. Vogelsang took away a bit of the spotlight as his play created some controversy with the Poker Twitter community with Vogelsang tanking in what many believed were routine spots.

Meanwhile, Scott Seiver and Brad Ruben joined the club of four-time bracelet winners over the weekend. Read on to learn more.

Dan Smith Wins His First Bracelet

With nearly $38 million in live poker tournament earnings as tracked by The Hendon Mob, Dan Smith was arguably the most successful poker tournament player to never win a WSOP bracelet. That all changed over the weekend after Smith won the 64-player $25,000 Heads-Up Championship for $509,717.

Smith has had numerous close calls in the past at the WSOP with two runner-up performances and six third-place finishes and has an impressive $10,577,904 in WSOP earnings alone.

“It was always something I was thinking about,” Smith said to PokerNews after the victory. “But I wasn’t overly stressed about it not happening yet.”

Smith faced a tough line-up in Jake Daniels, Laszlo Butjas, Alex Foxen, Jonathan Jaffe, and Dario Sammartino, before facing Christoph Vogelsang heads-up.

It was a back-and-forth affair for the final match. Smith took the lead for the final time when his sixes were good against Vogelsang’s ace-five suited. Moments later, Smith won the title on a bad beat when his ace-four got there against ace-ten.

As mentioned in the intro, Vogelsang generated some controversy among high-profile poker players about what they perceived to be tanking including Scott Seiver, who already won his fourth bracelet this festival.

what Vogelsang is doing in this (and every) tournament is at a minimum angleshooting (exploiting loopholes in rules for unethical gain) and every player every tournament should make sure a floor has a personal clock on him after 5 seconds, one that lasts 5 seconds too.

— Scott Seiver (@scott_seiver) June 5, 2022

While many were quick to suggest that the WSOP adopt a time-clock for some if not all events, and some were even asking the WSOP for an outright ban of Vogelsang, Smith had a different take.

“Big buy-in, tough field, every match super tough,” Smith said. “People love to give Christoph a hard time but he’s a hell of a player. He’s tanking because he’s really considering every spot. I didn’t steal a pot easily, every pot was a fight. This was one of the cooler ones to win.”

WSOP Event #5: $25K HU Championship Final Table Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Dan Smith	United States	$509,717
2	Christoph Vogelsang	Germany	$315,029
3	Dario Sammartino	Italy	$193,537
4	Kevin Rabichow	United States	$193,537
5	Sean Winter	United States	$75,045
6	Jonathan Jaffe	United States	$75,045
7	Chance Kornuth	United States	$75,045
8	Dylan Destefano	United States	$75,045

Scott Seiver Wins Bracelet #4

Earlier this festival, David Peters won his fourth bracelet. Scott Seiver matched him over the weekend with his fourth career bracelet after besting a field of 752 entries in Event #3: $2,500 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em to win the $320,059 top prize.

Perhaps there was some Lady Luck involved as Seiver eliminated both Alexander Farahi (second – $197,806) and David Goodman (third – $139,193) with pocket queens en route to the title.

Scott Seiver Bracelet Wins

Year	Event	Entries	Prize
2008	Event #21: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em	731	$755,891
2018	Event #52: $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship	114	$296,222
2019	Event #62: $10,000 Razz	116	$301,421
2022	Event #3: $2,500 Freezeout NLH	752	$320,059

WSOP Event #3: $2,500 Freezeout Final Table Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Scott Seiver	United States	$320,059
2	Alexander Farahi	United States	$197,806
3	David Goodman	United States	$139,193
4	Steve Zolotow	United States	$99,483
5	Sergio Aido	Spain	$72,233
6	Nick Schulman	United States	$53,296
7	Lewis Spencer	United Kingdom	$39,970
8	Chris Hunichen	United States	$30,478
9	Aditya Agarwal	India	$23,634
10	Shawn Hood	United States	$18,645

Brad Ruben Wins Fourth Bracelet

Brad Ruben joined Seiver and Peters in the four-bracelet club after winning Event #4: $1,500 Dealer’s Choice for $126,288.

Rubin’s run at the WSOP has been impressive as all four bracelets have come since 2020. Two of the bracelets were earned via WSOP Online Bracelet Events, while last year he also shipped the $1,500 Razz event live at the final year at the Rio.

Brad Ruben Bracelet Wins

Year	Event	Entries	Prize
2020	GGPoker.com Event #62: $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha	990	$220,160
2021	WSOP.com Event #21: $600 PLO 6-Handed	551	$69,148
2021	Event #42: $1,500 Razz	311	$99,188
2022	Event #4: $1,500 Dealer’s Choice 6-Handed	430	$126,288

WSOP Event #4: $1,500 Dealer’s Choice Final Table Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Brad Ruben	United States	$126,288
2	Jaswinder Lally	Canada	$78,048
3	Naoya Kihara	Japan	$52,282
4	Ben Yu	United States	$35,793
5	Jorge Walker	United States	$25,056
6	Charles Bransford	United States	$17,944
7	Alfred Atamian	United States	$13,153

2022 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Results

Event	Entries	Prize Pool	Winner	Country	Prize
Event #1: $500 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold’em	832	$349,440	Katie Kopp	United States	$65,168
Event #2: $100,000 High Roller Bounty	46	$3,000,500	David Peters	United States	$1,166,810
Event #3: $2,500 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em	752	$1,673,000	Scott Seiver	United States	$320,059
Event #4: $1,500 Dealer’s Choice 6-Handed	430	$574,050	Brad Ruben	United States	$126,288
Event #6: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship	64	$1,512,000	Dan Smith	United States	$509,717

_{*Images and hand data courtesy of the WSOP / PokerNews.}