First of three poker-playing brothers grabs WSOP victory
6 Jul 2016
Allan Le (photo by WSOP)
Name: Allan Le
Age: 30
Current Residence: Huntington Beach, CA
Profession: Poker Player
Number of WSOP Cashes: 30
Number of WSOP Final Table Appearances: 2
Number of WSOP Gold Bracelet Victories (with this tournament): 1
Best Previous WSOP Finish: 4th (2011)
Total WSOP Earnings: $613,564
Allan Le is the newest member of poker's gold bracelet club.
The professional poker player from Huntington Beach, CA won the $1,500 buy-in Mixed Pot-Limit Omaha High-Low Split/Omaha High-Low Split/Big O tournament, which was played over three days and nights and just concluded on the ESPN main stage at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
Le collected $189,223 in prize money, making this one of the biggest wins of his career. Le previously won a High Roller tournament. He now has 30 cashes at the WSOP.
Le won his victory by coming out on top at a final table which included a mixture of newcomers and tournament veterans. The moment of triumph came when Le had a huge chip lead and scooped the final pot of the tournament against Phillipp Elrisch, from Germany, who finished as the runner up.
Le is one of three prominent poker-playing brothers. He's the youngest of a family that also includes Nam Le and Tommy Le. However, Allan is the first to win the coveted gold bracelet.
This was a first-time event on the WSOP schedule. The format included three varieties of Omaha High-Low Split – pot-limit, limit, and Big O.
This tourney attracted 668 entrants which created a prize pool totaling $901,800. The top 101 finishers collected prize money.
Aside from the winner, here's a brief report of the other top finishers who made the final table:
Second Place: Phillip Elrisch (Berlin, Germany) -- $116,915
Third Place: Cody Crouch (Amarillo TX) -- $79,403
Fourth Place: Gavin Smith (Guelph, ON – Canada) -- $54,889
Fifth Place: Keith Ferrera (Las Vegas, NV) -- $38,634
Sixth Place: Yuval Bronshtein (Tel Aviv, Israel) -- $27,696
Seventh Place: David Bach (Athens, GA) -- $20,229
Eighth Place: Gary Bolden (Las Vegas, NV) -- $15,059
Ninth Place: John Monnette, from Palmdale, CA $11,431
This was the 53rd official event on this year's schedule. This leaves 16 gold bracelet events still to go at the 2016 WSOP.
Other notable in-the money finishers:
Jason Somerville, a gold bracelet winner, cashed for the 25th time in his career by taking 26th place.
Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi inched closer to the $7 million mark in career WSOP earnings by coming in 31st place. Mizrachi own three gold bracelets and is the only player to have won the prestigious "Poker Players Championship" twice.
Mike Leah, a gold bracelet winner who also owns three WSOP Circuit gold rings, came in 38th place. This was his 44th career cash at the series.
Vladimir Shchemelev, a top Russian player and gold bracelet winner, took 40th place. This was his 29th career cash at the series.
Ofer Zvi Stern, from Israel, who made last year's WSOP Main Event Championship final table, finishing in fifth place, came in 52nd place.
Frankie O'Dell, winner of two gold bracelets, finished in 61st place.
Ted Forrest, who's won six gold bracelets, came in 63rd place.
Barry Greenstein, a three-time gold bracelet winner and member of the Poker Hall of Fame, took 91st place.
Eli Elezra, three-time gold bracelet winner, finished 94th.
Fun facts:
The ages of participants ranged from 21 to 92. The eldest player in the field was Constantin Zdanowic. The average player age was 42.
The breakdown of player nationalities for this event was 544 Americans and 124 players from elsewhere. The top five nations represented was the United States, Great Britain, Russia, Canada, and France.
The breakdown of participants by gender was 95.4 percent male (519 players) and 4.6 percent female (42 players).
(Article courtesy of World Series of Poker)