Instead he got first place, a third WSOP bracelet, $84,600 in cash and a seemingly insurmountable lead in Player of the Year.
With the victory Danzer moves into a very elite group of players including Phil Ivey and Jeff Lisandro who have won three WSOP bracelets in a single year.
“You dream of something like this,” said Danzer after winning.
“I wanted to get sixth place in this tournament. That’s what I wanted to accomplish. I was really short and just nitting it up to the bubble because it was so important for Player of the Year.”
Incredibly the German didn’t have a single WSOP bracelet before this year, despite playing for nearly a decade.
“I just had such a good World Series in Las Vegas and I came here to compete for Player of the Year and now with this bracelet… well that’s a bonus.”
Danzer Out-duels Scott Clements in Heads-Up Match
The final table began with six players (who were the only ones in the money) thanks to an original starting field of just 48 players.
Danzer started the final table as the short-stack but quickly doubled up in an Omaha Hi-Lo hand against Scott Clements.
From there Danzer won a big three-way pot in Razz and never really looked back.
Ismael Bojang finished in fourth place for $23,688, which was his record-tying 13th WSOP cash this year. Bojang, who’s known for cashing a lot, will have two more events to break the record for most cashes in a year.
Then Danzer won another massive three-way pot against Clements and Jonathan Duhamel in 2-7 Triple Draw.
Duhamel ended up busting in third place in the hand for a $34,291 payday. Duhamel’s traveled quite far to be at WSOP APAC and so far it’s worked out for him with two final-table finishes. That second bracelet continues to elude him, however.
That led to an extended Danzer and Clements heads-up match that saw the lead switch back and forth multiple times.
The tournament finally ended in No-Limit Hold’em with Clements shoving with Q♠ 6♠ and Danzer calling with J♦ T♠. A ten spiked on the flop and that ended up being enough to earn Danzer his third bracelet.
Danzer Holds Huge Lead on Shack-Harris in POY
The victory gives Danzer over 100 points on Brandon Shack-Harris in Player of the Year with two events to go but Danzer didn’t think the race was over yet.
“I’m in the lead now but I’m not sure about anything!” he said. “It will end when one of us busts in the $25,000 High Roller, not before.”
Here are the complete final-table payouts:
1st: George Danzer- $84,600 2nd: Scott Clements -$52,340 3rd: Jonathan Duhamel - $34,291 4th: Ismael Bojang - $23,688 5th: Tino Lechich- $17,371 6th: Sam Khouiss - $13,310
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