Michael Wang Wins Second Career World Series of Poker Bracelet

Michael Wang is now a two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner.

The New Jersey native’s two victories at the WSOP have an interesting symmetry. In 2015 he emerged victorious in the first open-field bracelet event of that year’s series, a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event. Seven years later, Wang won one of the final events of the 2022 WSOP by taking down another $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament.

This latest win saw Wang outlast a field of 573 entries to earn the hardware and a career-high payout of $541,604. His second-largest score was the $466,120 he earned alongside his first bracelet. Wang now has just shy of $4.5 million in career tournament earnings to his name.

In addition to the title and the money, Wang was also awarded 1,680 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. This was his second title and seventh final-table finish of the year, having also taken down an event at the PokerGO Stairway To Millions series in January for $219,300. With 2,910 total points, Wang now sits in 24th place in the 2022 POY race, which is sponsored by Global Poker.

This event was one of several that were impacted by the panic that spread through much of the Las vegas stip after false reports of an active shooter. The resulting chaos caused massive disruptions to all of the events going on at the series late on Saturday, July 16, leaving many shaken and some injured in the crush of people trying to escape the area.

As a result of the unexpectedly early end to the previous day, play resumed on Sunday, July 17 with 192 contenders still remaining. The strong turnout for this event had built a prize pool of $2,642,963 that was paid out among the top 86 finishers. The final few tables were stacked, with the likes of four-time bracelet winner Mike Matusow (31st), Maria Ho (30th), bracelet winner Nacho Barbero (24th), bracelet winner and World Poker Tour champion Chad Eveslage (18th), bracelet winner Andrew Kelsall (15th), six-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu (13th) all making it deep.

By the time the field was combined onto a single table, Colombian tournament crusher Farid Jattin had seized the chip lead. Wang was in fourth chip position with nine remaining, but soon added to his stack when he picked up pocket jacks to best the pocket sixes of Erfan Geula (9th – $42,149).

After William Nguyen (8th – $54,185) and bracelet winner Fred Goldberg (7th – $70,734) were eliminated, Wang scored his first knockout at the final table thanks to a preflop cooler. His pocket tens held up against the pocket nines of William O’Neil (6th – $83,740) to see Wang climb up the chip counts.

Two-time bracelet Yuval Bronshtein was the next to fall. He shoved A-7 from the button and was called by the A-10 suited of Jattin out of the small blind. Jattin turned broadway to leave Bronshtein drawing dead. He secured $126,089 for his fifth-place showing. This was his fourth final-table finish of the series, with the previous three all coming in $10,000 buy-in championship events.

Kartik Ved’s run in this tournament came to an end when his pocket sevens lost a preflop race to the K-J of a surging Jattin. The bracelet winner earned $172,103 for his fourth-place finish, the fourth-largest score of his career.

Nine-time bracelet winner and living legend of the game Erik Seidel came within a couple places of earning yet another title at the series. In the end, he fell just short of capturing his tenth when his KQ was unable to outrace the 88 of Jattin. The board came down A72610 and the 62-year-old was eliminated in third place ($238,321).

Seidel now has more than $41.1 million in career tournament earnings to his name, the sixth-most of any player in the world. He also earned 1,120 points for his seventh POY-qualified final table of the year. He now sits in 21st place on the leaderboard.

Heads-up play began with Jattin holding more than a 4:1 chip lead over Wang. He extended his advantage even further in the early going, but Wang scored a double-up with K-J suited besting Q-J to pick himself off the mat.

Wang then pulled into a virtual tie when Jattin turned bottom pair into a bluff at the wrong time. Wang quickly called Jattin’s river shove with his king-high flush to double up.

The decisive hand of the battle for the bracelet saw Wang unleash a check-raise after a 842 flop. Jattin made the call and the 9 hit the turn.Wang bet 1,800,000 and Jattin came along. The 8 river paired the board and made a flush possible. Wang bet 4.6 million. Jattin raised to put Wang all-in. Wang made the call with 85 for trip eights, while Jattin showed 75 for a bluff.

Jattin was left with just more than four big blinds. He was soon all-in with Q4. Wang held 63. The board ran out 43393 to give Wang quad threes for the win.

Jattin earned $334,747 as the runner-up finisher. This was his ninth final-table showing of 2022, with three titles won along the way. The 1,400 POY points he took home were enough to move him into third place in the POY standings heading into the back half of the annual schedule.

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

Winner photo credit: WSOP / Seth Haussler.

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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