Nick Schulman Dominates $25,000 Eight-Max To Win Fifth WSOP Bracelet

Nick Schulman ran away with the title in the 2024 World Series of Poker $25,000 no-limit hold’em eight-max event, scoring five of the seven knockouts at the final table while maintaining a sizable chip lead for the final few hours of the tournament. As the champion, the 39-year-old poker pro and commentator earned $1,667,842 and his fifth WSOP gold bracelet. He is just the 39th player in poker history to have won five or more titles at the series.

“Five has a really special ring to it,” Schulman told PokerGO reporters after coming out on top. “It really does mean a lot. I’m so thankful. I’m so happy.”

This was Schulman’s first bracelet won in no-limit hold’em. His first two wins came in the $10,000 deuce-to-seven lowball championship in 2009 and 2012. In 2019 he took down the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better championship, while his fourth bracelet came in the $1,500 seven-card stud event last year.

Schulman now has more than $20.3 million in career tournament earnings, with this latest score being the second-highest payday on his resume. The first remains the $2.2 million he earned as the winner of the 2005 World Poker Tour World Poker Finals at Foxwoods Resort Casino.

This was the first title and fourth final-table finish of the year for Schulman. The 1,680 Card Player Player of the Year points he locked up with the victory moved him into 31st place in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker.

Schulman also scored 750 PokerGO Tour points for topping the 318-entry field. With 1,035 total points, he now sits in fourth place on the PGT season-long leaderboard.

The top 48 finishers earned a share of the $7,473,000 prize pool in this event, with plenty of big names running deep including ten-time bracelet winner Phil Ivey (22nd), recent $1,5000 shootout winner Daniel Sepiol (21st), bracelet winner Dan Smith (13th), and 2019 WSOP main event runner-up Dario Sammartino (10th).

The final table began with Schulman in the lead and six-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb hot on his heels. Deeb lost a big chunk of his stack running a multi-street bluff with Q-4. He was called down by Noel Rodriguez, who had rivered trip kings. Deeb was left short, while Rodriguez surged towards the top of the chip counts.

Schulman jumped out to his big lead via a massive coin flip versus Rodriguez during eight-handed action, with pocket queens fading A-K for the one player who had him out-chipped at the time. Rodriguez was left with just a couple of big blinds after losing the race, while Schulman ended the hand with 44 percent of the total chips in play in his stack.

It took several hours before the first knockout blow of the official final table was dealt. The stalemate ended when Deeb’s A-K was unable to overcome the pocket sixes of Dean Lyall. Deeb earned $153,302 for his latest deep run. The 2018 WSOP Player of the Year now has nearly $13.9 million in career earnings to his name.

Yingui Li was the next to fall when his K-J suited ran into K-Q for Schulman. Both players flopped a pair of kings, and Schulman’s queen kicker played to earn him the pot. Li secured $202,574 as the seventh-place finisher.

That kicked off a spree of eliminations. Schulman’s A-9 bested Roberto Perez’s (6th – $273,414) Q-9 suited to narrow the field to five. Schulman then came from behind with 10-6 suited against the A-10 of bracelet winner Ben Heath (5th – $376,762). The British poker pro was soon joined on the rail by David Stamm, who called off his last few blinds with J-5 and found himself dominated by the Q-5 of Schulman, who flopped a pair of queens and held from there. Stamm earned $529,833 as the fourth-place finisher, while Schulman took 83 percent of the chips in play into three-handed action.

The two shorter stacks squared off for the next knockout, with Dean Lyall’s A-3 suited running into A-K for Noel Rodriguez, who had managed to bounce back from just a couple of big blinds after losing that big flip with the same hand against the pocket queens of Schulman earlier in the day. Rodriguez held through a nine-high runout to eliminate Lyall (3rd – $760,083) and set up the heads-up showdown with Schulman.

Schulman held nearly a 6:1 chip lead when cards got back in the air. It took just a single hand for him to convert that advantage into the title. Schulman limped from the button for 400,000 total with 104. Rodriguez checked with J2 and the flop came down 1082. Rodriguez checked and Schulman bet a single big blind with his top pair. Rodriguez check-raised to 1,300,000 with his flush draw and bottom pair. Schulman moved all-in and Rodriguez called. The 6 turn and 6 river kept Schulman ahead to bring the event to a close.

Rodriguez walked away with $1,111,897 as the runner-up, the largest score yet for the Northern California native.

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

Visit the Card Player 2024 World Series of Poker page for schedules, news, interviews, and the latest event results. WSOP coverage sponsored by Global Poker.

Photo credit: PokerGO / Miguel Cortes.

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