The World Series of Poker always seems to dominate the live poker scene during the summer months, but there are other tournaments taking place as well. Some of the best poker players are able to compete in the WSOP and other events, while others tend to focus on smaller events entirely.
There were a couple of big events that took place over the past week, and those events allowed some of the best players to cash in. Winners of these tournaments might not have walked away with a gold bracelet, but there was some serious money on the line.
Hasson Wins Big at Wynn
The Wynn Summer Classic is another big event that is currently taking place in Las Vegas, and it’s known for attracting some great poker players. While there are a number of events that stand out in this series, the Mystery Bounty Event tends to award the biggest prize.
This was a $2,200 buy-in event, but there was a chance for players to cash in even more by collecting some massive bounties in this tournament. The event champion doesn’t always collect a ton of bounties, but that is exactly what happened this year.
Ori Hasson took home first place in this event for more than $460,000, but that wasn’t all of the prize money that he took home. He also collected nearly $370,000 in bounties and that led to a massive payday of more than $800,000 in one single event.
Hasson is from Israel, and he has now won close to $2 million by playing live poker throughout his career. There were nearly 3,000 players that competed in this event, and everyone was searching for the bounties along with Hasson.
More than 300 players walked away with some cash in this event, but playing poker was only secondary to chasing the bounties. Hasson was able to walk away with 1,200 POY points as well, and that will get him into the mix at bigger events later this year.
Wilson Wins WPT Alpha8 Trifecta Event
The Wynn Las Vegas is hosting other big events this summer, including the World Poker Tour Alpha 8 Trifecta Event. The first first of three $25,000 buy-in events just wrapped up, and it was Brock Wilson that walked away with the biggest prize.
There were just 78 entries in the two-day event as most of the biggest names are all wrapped up in some major WSOP tournaments. Wilson was more than happy to take home first prize in this event and he now has more than $8.4 million in career earnings to his name.
While this was the first time that Wilson was able to win a tournament this year, he has already been at a final table nine times. He is currently top-70 when looking at the POY standings, and that will get him in big tournaments later on in the year.
Seth Gottlieb took home second place in this event, and he is a player that has already won a major tournament this year.
