A 369-person field was not strong enough to stop poker pro Upeshka De Silva’s march to a second WSOP gold bracelet. Last night, the player claimed the gold and a first-place prize of $229,923 after emerging the victor from Event #3: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout, a tournament representing one of the innovations at this year’s World Series of Poker festival.
De Silva added his most recent gold bracelet to the one he won precisely two years ago for taking down a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em tournament.
The three-day Shootout was the first event of this kind to be taking place during this year’s edition of the Series. Under its structure, only individual table winners were able to progress to the next stages of play. De Silva won three consecutive rounds to secure a seat among the final ten.
All ten finalists started final table play with even stacks. However, it became clear very quickly that De Silva and Louis Helm, who eventually ended up as the runner-up finisher, would be the ones to dominate action. Played on Saturday, Day 3 began with De Silva gaining momentum and eventually accumulating more than a half of all chips in play.
If the eventual champion was the one to determine the course of action during the first levels of play, it was Helm to take the lead later on the day. Helm, a relative newbie on the live poker scene but with extensive online experience, knocked out some former WSOP gold bracelet winners at the final table. This helped him take hold of the chip lead and enter the heads-up match as the one with the bigger stack, although De Silva was not trailing far behind.
Heads-up lasted 51 hands, during which the two players were trying to outwit one another. Asked about his opponent, De Silva described his strategy as one that involved limp/re-raise/going all-in action that the eventual champion tried, and oftentimes struggled, to isolate.
The moment of triumph came when the two players went all-in pre-flop, De Silva holding [Ad][Jc] against Helm’s [Ad][8h]. De Silva’s hand help up all the way through the river, when a [Jh] ran out to solidify his victory.
Helm collected $142,115 for his deep run into the event, an amount that will provide his startup tech business back in Texas with a significant boost.
Texas has turned into a home for De Silva, as well. Of his plans, the gold bracelet winner said that he will stick to Las Vegas for the rest of the Series and will then travel around the world for one major event or another on the 2017’s tournament calendar. The player also revealed that between his poker journeys he will also find time to tie the knot with his fiancée.
