Nevada-based poker pro Ben Yu battled his way to his career second gold bracelet, winning the $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship last night. The player also added $232,738 to his poker bankroll, which now exceeds $2 million.
Yu’s road to victory was long and thorny. The player had to survive one of the toughest final tables to have been played at the Series this summer. His opponents included former gold bracelet winners and skillful poker pros with years of experience on the felt.
The event’s final day began with Shaun Deeb as the chip leader. Deeb, a Las Vegas resident, was going for his third piece. Aside from him and Yu, there were two more former gold bracelet winners among the final six – Mike Matusow, who has collected four pieces from the Series so far, and Nick Schulman with two previous victories. Six-handed play was rounded out by Canadians Mike Watson and Shawn Buchanan.
Yu ran very good over the course of the day, but things became even better for him during three-handed play. Yet, the player admitted that both Deeb and Buchanan were feared opponents and attributed part of his success to the excellent cards he ran into over the final stages of play.
Yu entered heads-up match against Deeb with a 5:3 advantage. The player never looked back from that point on, extending his lead to eventually win the tournament. Two-handed battle lasted for around 40 minutes, during which Yu reduced his final opponent’s chip stack bit by bit.
On what turned out to be the final hand in play, Deeb raised from the button and Yu called. Yu took two and Deeb drew three. Yu checked and then responded to a call from Deeb. The second draw saw Yu take two, while his opponent drew one.
Yu forced Deeb into an all-in confrontation. The two opponents decided to stand pat on the final draw, with Deeb turning over [8x][7x][6x][4x][2x] against Yu’s winning [8x][7x][5x][4x][2x]. Deeb received $143,842 for his runner-up finish. He congratulated Yu before leaving the table, saying that he had run the best.
Yu’s bracelet number two came two years after the player emerged the victor in the 2015 WSOP $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship for his first Series gold piece. Including last night, Yu has cashed in 47 Series events since the beginning of his career.
Speaking of his road to victory, the player said that he was part of a very tough final table, with all of the participants being extremely experienced and hard to crack.
