Brian Green Wins First Bracelet of the 2019 World Series of Poker
The first bracelet of the 50th Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) has been awarded!
Brian Green topped a field of 204 runners to win Event #2: $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super Turbo Bounty for $345,669 and his first gold bracelet. To do so he had to defeat his good friend – 2018 Global Poker Award winner for “Breakout Player of the Year”, Ali Imsirovic.
“It kind of gets the monkey off my back. Now I can play poker without having that on my mind,” Green said after the win. “I tend to do well when I play pro-heavy fields... I know most of the guys who play $10ks are pretty good players. In a turbo, though, there’s a lot of flipping too, not a lot of postflop poker. Still, a win’s a win, it’s hard to win a poker tournament.”
The win came three months after Green relocated from Texas to Las Vegas, a fact he credits for his early success.
“I’ve been coming out here for at least 100 days a year for probably 20 years and it gets expensive,” Green explained. “I figured why not buy a place and not have the pressure of having to pay for [hotel] rooms. Plus, now homecourt advantage, it looks like it’s working. Sleeping in my own bed and all that, I thought that might be an advantage this summer.”
Green, who started playing poker in 1984 after learning the game from his father, had more than $3 million in lifetime earnings prior to his victory, which included a career-high $1,117,923 for finishing fifth in the 2016 $111,111 High Roller for One Drop.
Last September, he finished runner-up to David Peters in the 2018 Poker Masters Event #1: $10,000 NLH for $138,000, and back in 2013 he won a circuit ring at the Harrah’s New Orleans stop in a $365 NLH Turbo.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brian Green | United States | $345,669 |
| 2 | Ali Imsirovic | United States | $213,644 |
| 3 | Asher Conniff | United States | $145,097 |
| 4 | Loren Klein | United States | $100,775 |
| 5 | Ping Liu | United States | $71,614 |
| 6 | Daniel Negreanu | Canada | $52,099 |
| 7 | Martijn Gerrits | The Netherlands | $38,823 |
| 8 | Zachary Clark | United States | $29,650 |
| 9 | Cary Katz | United States | $23,224 |
Final Table Action
The final six players returned to action on Thursday in what was the first live stream of the 2019 WSOP. On just the ninth hand of play, six-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu moved all in from the button holding ace-ten and received a call from Loren Klein, who had queen-jack in the big blind. Klein turned a queen and that was all she wrote for Negreanu.
Ten hands later, Ping Liu followed him out the door, also courtesy of Klein. It happened when Liu jammed the small blind with jack-ten suited only to have Klein way up with ace-ten in the big blind. Liu actually flopped the nut king-high straight but a jack on the turn gave Klein Broadway and Liu took home $71,614 for his fifth-place finish.
Klein’s run came to an end in fourth place after he got it in preflop holding ace-nine against Asher Conniff’s ace-queen suited. Not long after, Conniff, who started the final table with the chip lead, lost with ace-nine to Brian Green’s king-queen all in preflop after a king appeared on the flop. That allowed Green to take a more than 2:1 chip lead into heads-up play against Ali Imsirovic.
The latter managed an early double to even the stacks, and then the duo played the final hand. Imsirovic got his stack all in preflop holding two red kings and was up against Green’s ace-nine offsuit. Imsirovic held through the nine-high flop after a brick on the turn, but another nine on the river sealed the deal for Green. Imsirovic, one of the hottest players in poker over the past couple of years, was denied his first bracelet but did take home $213,644 in prize money.
PokerNews coverage of the 2019 WSOP continues today with updates from both Event #1: Casino Employees Event and Event #3: $500 Big 50.