Ray Dehkharghani beat Jason Mercier heads-up for his first WSOP bracelet. (WSOP photo)

Jason Mercier found himself heads-up for his second bracelet win in three days on Wednesday night at the 2016 World Series of Poker but it wasn’t meant to be as Mercier busted the $10,000 Razz Championship event in second place behind Ray Dehkharghani. Meanwhile Sam Soverel, who played in the $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl just two weeks ago, managed to win his first career bracelet in an event with a buy-in much, much, much smaller.

Event #19: Sam Soverel Goes from High Rollers to $1,000 Pot Limit Omaha Champ
Sam Soverel made quite the comeback to win his first WSOP bracelet.

Sam Soverel normally plays high stakes cash games or the super high roller buy-in events at Aria. A bad run in both of those lead Soverel to take a shot in the $1,000 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha event. It paid off – just not as handsomely as his usual game selection might.

“Coming into this year’s Series, a $1,000 event isn’t something I would normally play,” Soverel said. “But I had a really bad week in cash games, so I decided to take a few days off. Then, I late registered right before the dinner break and came in with only ten big blinds when I started, and then ran good.”

Soverel came back from being the second shortest stack at the start of Day 3 to beat Kirby Lowery heads-up to claim his first career bracelet and $185,317. Soverel, who was the shortest stack with just four players remaining, eliminated the final three players to allow him to win the bracelet.

Final Table Payouts

  1. Sam Soverel – $185,317
  2. Kirby Lowery – $114,486
  3. Garrett Garvin – $81,080
  4. Zachary Hench – $58,164
  5. Bruno Borges – $42,270
  6. Jeffrey Landherr – $31,126
  7. Jared Koppel – $23,228
  8. Henri Ojala – $17,570
  9. Juuso Leppanen – $13,474

Event #20: Ray Dehkharghani Denies Jason Mercier $10,000 Razz Championship

Jason Mercier had every reason to believe he was going to win another bracelet on Wednesday night. He came into the final table of the $10,000 Razz Championship with the chip lead and the momentum after winning his first bracelet of the summer just 72 hours earlier. It wasn’t meant to be though as Ray Dehkharghani beat Mercier heads-up to win the first bracelet of his career.

“It means a tremendous amount to win this gold bracelet.*The best players, they are generally spending their time playing in high-stakes cash games.*That being said, we do follow what goes on in the tournaments, especially when one of them sits down with us to play,” said Dehkharghani.*“But the reality is, it’s meant a lot to me for a long time.* My goal this summer was to win a gold bracelet.*I only play two to three tournaments a year. My mission was to win a bracelet and now I’ve won a bracelet, so I feel very fortunate.”

The runner-up finish cost Mercier a chance to cash in on some more of the WSOP bracelet bets he made before the Series started.

“That’s what I’m most disappointed about. I have a bunch of bets on winning two bracelets and the huge one for winning three. It’s almost impossible to win three when you get a second (place) because that means you’re going to have to go heads up four times,” said Mercier.

Final Table Payouts

  1. Ray Dehkharghani – $273,338
  2. Jason Mercier – $168,936
  3. Yueqi Zhu – $116,128
  4. Brian Hastings – $82,078
  5. Robert Campbell – $59,694
  6. John Racener – $44,712
  7. Bart Hanson – $34,521
  8. Jyri Merivirta – $27,499

Event #21: Daniel Negreanu in Contention in $3,000 Six Max No Limit Hold’em

Just 26 players remain in the hunt for the $3,000 Six Max No Limit Hold’em event including Daniel Negreanu, who bagged up a top five stack at the end of Day 2. The biggest stack belongs to Martin Kozlov with 1,497,000. Right behind him is David Vamplew with 1,310,000.

Negreanu finished with 932,000 and was more than happy to share some info on a key hand that helped get him a big chunk of his stack.


Other notables still in the field include former November Niner Matt Giannetti, Doug Polk and the players who won this tournament last year, Justin Liberto.

Action resumes at Noon PT and will play down to a winner.

Top Ten Chip Counts

  1. Martin Kozlov – 1,497,000
  2. David Vamplew – 1,310,000
  3. Calvin Lee – 1,236,000
  4. Raghav Bansal – 1,059,000
  5. Daniel Negreanu – 932,000
  6. Will Givens – 930,000
  7. Matt Giannetti – 738,000
  8. Doug Polk – 728,000
  9. Steffen Sontheimer – 623,000
  10. Norbert Szecsi – 621,000

Event #22: Just 15 Remain in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Event

Danny Leleads the final 15 players in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Event. Le finished with 784,000 which puts him 53,000 ahead of his closest competitor, Tyler Bonkowski, but the gap between those two and the rest of the field is substantial.

Dustin Bush finished with the third biggest stack but with 442,000 chips, it’s just 56% of Le’s stack. Daniel Idema won the $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship in 2011, is in the middle of the pack with 315,000.

Top Ten Chip Counts

  1. Danny Le – 784,000
  2. Tyler Bonkowski – 731,000
  3. Dustin Bush – 442,000
  4. Andrew Beversdorf – 409,000
  5. Dale Eberle – 390,000
  6. Scott Farnsworth – 355,000
  7. Daniel Idema – 315,000
  8. Dave Tobin – 292,000
  9. Mark Gregorich – 287,000
  10. Jeffrey Cookson – 223,000

Event #23: Iman Shahbazy Leads $2,000 No Limit Hold’em After Day 1

Just over 1,400 players showed up for the $2,000 No Limit Hold’em event with Iman Shahbazy finishing Day 1 with the overall chip lead. Shahbazy bagged up 141,100 at the end of the night, just 200 ahead of Kyle White.

Some of the notable names among the 283 survivors include Steve Gross (101,100), Tuan Le (100,000), Jeff Madsen (84,100), Anthony Spinella (79,000), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (76,900) and Niall Farrell (58,700).

The tournament resumes at Noon PT.

Top Ten Chip Counts

  1. Iman Shahbazy – 141,100
  2. Kyle White – 140,900
  3. Navin Kamal – 137,900
  4. Jake Labonte – 131,900
  5. Michael Palo – 130,000
  6. Steven Watts – 130,000
  7. Michael Laake – 121,600
  8. Alex Santiago – 117,800
  9. Viliyan Petleshkov – 115,200
  10. Cesar Garcia – 115,000

Event #24: Daniel Alaei Leads After Day 1 of $10,000 HORSE

Considered to be one of the tougher $10,000 buy-in events on the WSOP calendar each year, the HORSE Championship brings out some of the best mixed games players in the world. One of those players, five time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel Alaei finishd Day 1 with 324,000 and the chip lead.

The group closest to Alaei includes Matt Vengrin (292,500), Alexay Makarov (265,500), Bryn Kenney (264,000) and Adam Friedman (256,500). Other notables still in contention include James Obst (211,000), Sorel Mizzi (194,000), Chris Ferguson (157,000) and Dzmitry Urbanovich (98,000).

A total of 171 players registered this year, down 16% over the 2015 turnout of 2014. One of the last players to register was Jason Mercier, who entered only after the conclusion of the $10,000 Razz final table.

Another player advancing to Day 2 is the kid from the dirty basement, Jason Somerville.

The final 66 players return Thursday at 2 PM PT.

Top Ten Chip Counts

  1. Daniel Alaei – 324,000
  2. Matt Vengrin – 292,500
  3. Alexey Makarov – 265,500
  4. Bryn Kenney – 264,000
  5. Adam Friedman – 256,500
  6. Phillip Hui – 252,000
  7. Yuval Bronshtein – 226,500
  8. Ron Ware – 224,000
  9. John Holley – 220,500
  10. David Oppenheim – 220,000