Historic three-peat denies Phil Hellmuth 17th WSOP bracelet

Adam Friedman and Phil Hellmuth faced disconnected astatine the World Series of Poker with landmark achievements connected the line.

This time, past smiled connected Friedman.

He became the archetypal idiosyncratic to triumph the aforesaid WSOP lawsuit 3 times successful a row, defeating Hellmuth heads-up successful the $10,000 buy-in Dealer’s Choice six-handed tourney aboriginal Thursday astatine the Rio.

Friedman, 39, from Gahanna, Ohio, won his 4th WSOP bracelet overall, prevailing successful a tract of 93 entries to instrumentality location $248,350. He besides won the $10,000 Dealer’s Choice successful 2018 and 2019. It was not held past twelvemonth due to the fact that of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hellmuth, 57, from Palo Alto, California, missed a accidental to widen his grounds with his 17th WSOP bracelet, conscionable 3 days aft claiming his 16th successful the $1,500 No-limit 2-7 Lowball Draw. (The WSOP awards trophy bracelets for tourney victories.)

Hellmuth, who earned $153,493 for finishing second, lamented losing the spot pb heads-up.

“What’s pugnacious is having 4 cardinal successful chips to his 1.5 cardinal successful chips and not finishing the job,” Hellmuth said. “Part of that is my fault, and portion of it was immoderate atrocious luck astatine the end. … I felt similar I was expected to triumph today.”

Hellmuth stopped a erstwhile three-peat effort astatine the WSOP erstwhile helium defeated Johnny Chan heads-up to triumph the 1989 Main Event aft Chan won successful 1987 and ’88.

In Dealer’s Choice, the players instrumentality turns choosing which poker variant to play from a database of 20, ranging from acquainted games specified arsenic No-limit Hold’em and Seven-card Stud to obscure ones specified arsenic Big O and Badeucy.

“It’s truthful addicting, truthful galore games that we don’t get to play successful tournaments, truthful galore antithetic thought processes and strategies that don’t beryllium successful immoderate different tournament,” Friedman said.

Figuring retired which crippled to prime is 1 of the astir important aspects of the event, helium said. If a subordinate astatine the array is anemic successful a game, you privation to telephone that crippled implicit and over, helium said.

“I don’t deliberation I person immoderate games that are peculiarly weak, but successful wide I cognize what to prime astatine astir each times,” Friedman said.

Hellmuth opted to play Badugi successful what turned retired to beryllium the last hand. The crippled is simply a signifier of Triple Draw Lowball successful which players effort to marque their lowest four-card manus with each paper successful a antithetic suit. (The champion manus is ace-deuce-three-four of 4 antithetic suits.)

A short-stacked Hellmuth was all-in earlier the archetypal draw, and some players stood pat connected each 3 draws. Friedman showed his 9 Badugi (nine-six-five-deuce), and Hellmuth conceded.

Friedman said helium would similar to spot the WSOP grow its Dealer’s Choice offerings — thing to support from playing No-limit Hold’em each the time.

“I don’t caput playing the two-card poker, but let’s beryllium honest, it’s boring compared to each different game,” helium said. “It’s 2 cards. How overmuch thought process could determination be?”

Contact Jim Barnes astatine jbarnes@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV connected Twitter.