Nicholas Seward Wins First World Series Of Poker Bracelet

Nicholas Seward became one of the latest bracelet winners on June 13 at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nevada when he toppled the field in Event 31.

“I’m just so grateful for my friends, my family and just the experience,” Seward said to reporters before he headed to celebrate with his railbirds after the win. His total career earnings are closing in on $1.3 million thanks to the $516,135 he took home for the victory.

The $3,000 buy-in six-max no-limit hold’em even saw another strong turnout with a field of 1,230 joining the mix during just one starting flight. That set the total prize pool at $3,284,100. The top 184 players all took home at least $6,015 in prize money. Day 2 saw 61 players return with a long way to go until the final table. Notables that made a deep run in the event included Jared Ingles (18th), Maria Ho (30th), Jonathan Little (40th), Clemen Deng (42nd), Joseph Cheong (43rd), and Alex Foxen (50th).

When the final table was set David Coleman led the way as the big stack, and Seward needed to play catch up coming in with the third largest stack. He got off to a good start by eliminating Stephen Buell in sixth place during the first few minutes of play to climb up to second in chips.

A long period of five-handed play saw a series of double ups before Coleman took out Nikolaos Angelou Konstas in fifth place. Seward was last in chips at that point, but he then found two timely doubles to go from zero to hero as the chip leader. Seward was now in position to take out his good friend and Card Player Player of the Year contender Coleman in fourth place.

“It was bittersweet, he was the best player at the table. It’s hard not to want him out. It gives me a better chance to win, but he’s a very close friend of mine and we’ve worked together a lot, and I have endless respect for him. So, you know, bittersweet, it hurt and I feel bad about it but it’s, you know, there’s definitely a sweet part to it too.”

It wasn’t all bittersweet for Coleman, who added 720 POY points to his total of 5,684 that puts him in a close second place to Adrian Mateos in the 2024 POY race sponsored by Global Poker

Seward took control of the final table from there. He took out Akinobu Maeda in third place to take a 1.5:1 chip advantage into the heads-up final against Konstantyn Holskyi, who had scored multiple doubles to make it to the final match. Holskyi scored another double the first time the final two got their chips into the middle to take the chip lead for himself for a hot minute.

Seward fought his way back to climb to the top again before the final hand of the tournament played out to bring things to a close. The money got in with the flop reading 1092, and Holskyi was all in with K10. Seward had him covered holding J10, and the turn and river fell QK. That gave Seward the straight and the big win. Holskyi was eliminated in second place for a nice payday worth $344,092, and that is by far the largest tournament score for the player from the Ukraine.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY 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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