Lawrence Brandt Wins World Series of Poker $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. For His Second Bracelet of the Summer

Lawrence Brandt won his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet by taking down the $1,500 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better event on June 30, 2022. Less than three weeks later, the Arlington, TX resident found himself in the winner’s circle at the WSOP yet again. This time around he beat out a field of 327 entries in the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event to secure his second bracelet of the summer and the top prize of $205,139.

Brandt was the third player to win two bracelet events at the 2022 WSOP, following in the footsteps of Dan Zack and main event champion Espen Jorstad. At least one player has won multiple bracelets in a single series for the past 23 consecutive years. This streak began when Chris Ferguson won both a $2,500 seven-card stud event and the WSOP main event in 2000. Last year, a total of four players managed to win multiple titles: Kevin Gerhart, Georgios
Sotiropoulos, Josh Arieh, and Scott Ball.

While this was Brandt’s second bracelet, it was actually his first time playing a live H.O.R.S.E. event, which features a mix of limit games including hold’em, Omaha eight-or-better, razz, seven card stud, and stud eight-or-better.

“It feels awesome because this is my first H.O.R.S.E. tournament. The only reason I played this tournament was because I won the first one and I was staying around until the Tournament of Champions, so just running deep was a dream. Getting to the final table was crazy, I came in third in chips today but was feeling really good and confident and the cards just went my way,” Brandt told WSOP reporters after coming out on top.

This victory saw Brandt earn 720 Card Player Player of the Year points. Brandt now sits in a tie with Michael Jukich for 91st place in the 2022 POY race, which is sponsored by Global Poker. His two titles won at the series account for the entirety of his 1,680 total points.

Plenty of big names joined Brandt in making deep runs in this event, including four-time bracelet winners Jeff Maden (38th – $5,250) and Bradley Ruben (37th – $5,250), five-time bracelet winner Adam Friedman (35th – $5,250), three-time bracelet winner Frankie O’Dell (33rd – $5,250), two-time World Poker Tour champion and recent bracelet winner Daniel Weinman (25th – $6,000), two-time bracelet winner Mike Wattel (13th – $9,536), bracelet winner Andre Akkari (11th – $11,664), three-time bracelet winner David Bach (9th – $14,594), bracelet winner Perry Friedman (7th – $24,403), and four-time bracelet winner Kevin Gerhart (5th – $44,415).

This event was originally scheduled to play to a winner over the course of three days, but a fourth was ultimately required. Day 3 was also impacted by the chaos resulting from false reports of an active shooter that caused massive disruptions to all of the events going on at the series late on Saturday, July 16.

The final three players returned for day 4 with Brandt as the shortest stack. Tomasz Gluszko was out in front, but was soon surpassed by Roberto Marin thanks to a hot start during a round of razz.

The lead changed hands yet again when Brandt won a huge pot with a straight beating the trips of Marin playing stud. Gluzko slid down the leaderboard during stud eight-or-better, and soon found himself all-in and at risk on fifth street with (66)J45. He was up against the (33)723 for Brandt, who had spiked trip threes to take the lead for the high side. Brandt improved to a full house by seventh street, and Gluzko failed to improve on either the high or low side with his last card. As a result, Brandt scooped the pot and sent the Polish player to the rail with $87,687 for his third-place showing.

With that, Brandt took a 2:1 lead into heads-up play with Marin. That gap was soon decreased thanks to a big limit hold’em pot with Marin’s pocket queens beating the pocket tens of Brandt on a nine-high board. Brandt was able to re-establish his lead thanks to taking down several hands during the round of Omaha eight-or-better.

The final hand came in stud eight-or-better. Marin got all-in on third street. Here is how the boards came down:

Marin – (A10)Q447X
Brandt – (KQ)99J9(9)

Brandt made quads to scoop the pot and the title. Marin was awarded $126,895 as the runner-up finisher. This was his largest recorded tournament score ever.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo credit: WSOP / Alec Rome.

You can follow the 2022 World Series of Poker on Card Player’s series landing page, sponsored by Global Poker, the fastest growing online poker room in the world. Check out the series schedule, as well as event recaps, news, and player interviews.

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