On June 6, Thursday, a poker pro has caught the third WSOP gold bracelet of his career after winning Event #10 of the 2019 WSOP. He won bracelets back in 2006 and 2007, however he had to endure and wait for almost 12 years to be able to win another.
2019 WSOP Event #10: $1,500 Dealers Choice
Buy-in: $1,500
Date: June 3 to June 5, 2019
Entries: 470
Prize pool: $634,500
Scott Clements outlasted a player field of 470 to take home the prize money worth $144,957.
A poker pro from Mount Vernon, Washington, the 37-year-old Clements' win came in the form of the challenging dealer's choice format, wherein a player in rotation selects the game to be played from a list of 20 various poker variants.
Clements was mainly an online poker pro early in his career; however, he was forced to switch to playing live tournaments after his home state Washington passed a law back in 2006 (Black Friday) which declared playing online poker as illegal.
Even if Clements won gold bracelets in 2006 and 2007, he somehow was unable to get his next until after almost 12 years. He said, "I think in all my other pictures I didn't smile, but this one I'm definitely smiling, because I got back. If I'd have got second in this, it would have been pretty rough, because I've gotten a lot of seconds and I did not want to get another second."
In the game Dealers Choice, the strategy of some players is to choose the games they are well adept with, while others take advantage of their opponents' weakest spots. For Clements, he preferred the latter strategy, saying, "I usually just tried to pick like whatever people looked like they didn't want to be picked. I felt pretty comfortable in most of the games. I'm not always right, and sometimes I'm just lazy and I take whatever the last person picked if I can't think of anything better. I didn't have any specific scenario but I kept picking what I thought people were not as good at."
Final Table Action
A total of 21 players returned on the final Day 3 of Event #10, with Benny Glaser as the chip lead. It took the whole afternoon to reach an unofficial final table of 7 players. The bustout of Mike Watson in 7th place set the official final table with Clements enjoying the lead in chips.
Three-time bracelet winner Benny Glaser ended up in 6th for $18,996. David "Wes" Self settled in 5th place for $55,869, while Japanese Naoya Kihara, a previous bracelet winner, finished 4th place to take home $39,377.
"East Coast Mike" Mike Ross, a native of Chicago currently living in Las Vegas, managed to hold on despite his short stack to take the lead but Clements sent him to the rail in 3rd place, giving him $58,718 for his deep run.
The final hand of the event was between McDermott and Clements, which lasted for over an hour.
When he was asked how it feels to win this bracelet compared to his first two, he answered, "It's probably number one, because it's been 12 years. I was pretty cocky back then, when I won the first two right off. Plus, I've got three kids, so I can give them all a bracelet."
Clements can now sleep well thanks to him being able to win an event at the 50th WSOP series, finally ending his "bracelet drought" of almost 12 years. He now has $7,964,079 in total live earnings, according to The Hendon Mob.
2019 WSOP Event #10: $1,500 Dealers Choice Final Table Results
|
|
Player
|
Country
|
Prize (USD)
|
|
1
|
Scott Clements
|
USA
|
$144,957
|
|
2
|
Tim McDermott
|
USA
|
$89,567
|
|
3
|
Mike Ross
|
USA
|
$58,718
|
|
4
|
Naoya Kihara
|
Japan
|
$39,377
|
|
5
|
Wes Self
|
USA
|
$27,027
|
|
6
|
Benny Glaser
|
UK
|
$18,996
|
Source:
https://www.wsop.com/tournaments/updates/?aid=2&grid=1622&tid=17428&rr=5
