Scott Seiver Earns Second Bracelet in Two Weeks at WSOP
Every poker player who heads to the World Series of Poker each year has the same goal – to win a bracelet. There are variations on that goal, as some players want to win that bracelet in a particular event, others want to win two or more bracelets, and some openly say that they want to win enough to become the WSOP Player of the Year.
Scott Seiver is all of these players rolled into one.
And he has accomplished the multiple bracelet goal already, just a few weeks into the 2024 World Series. There are still four weeks remaining for him to add to that bracelet total and win the Player of the Year race. He is ready for that task.
Event 40: Razz
The poker variation that players love to hate but secretly still love, Razz brings an eclectic field to the tables. This $1,500 buy-in event was the 40th on the 2024 WSOP schedule, and Seiver was right in the mix.
The tournament totals were:
- Total entries: 547
- Total prize pool: $730,245
- Number of players paid: 83
- Minimum payout: $3,000
He plowed through Day 1 and finished second on the leaderboard. On Day 2, he kept up that momentum as the field dipped into the money and played toward the final stages of the event. Seiver finished that night with nearly 2.5M in chips, far ahead of any opponents.
The 14 players that returned on Day 3 had some work to do, and players like Brad Lindsey and Akihiro Kawaguchi did it. They took more chips than Seiver into the final table, though Seiver came out swinging to eliminate Steven Abitbol in ninth place and take chips from Ben Yu.
After Yu busted in eighth place and Lindsey in seventh, Brandon Shack-Harris took over the chip lead. Kawaguchi departed in sixth place just before the dinner break, and Seiver sent Soner Osman to the rail just after dinner. Shack-Harris busted Coleman in fourth place, and Seiver dispatched Ingo Klasen in third.
Shack-Harris had only 500K going into heads-up against Seiver and his 13,175,000 chips. Moments later, Seiver finished the job and claimed victory.
More Than a Bracelet
Seiver is known to run in some high-stakes circles, so his $141,374 first-place prize in Event 40 wasn’t life-changing money for him. The big prize was the bracelet.
Not only did Seiver win Event 10 to claim the Omaha-8 Championship bracelet just two weeks prior, he won his fifth career bracelet. That made his Event 40 victory his sixth piece of WSOP gold. That puts him in an elite club that includes players like Layne Flack, Ted Forrest, Jeff Lisandro, Brian Hastings, TJ Cloutier, Jason Mercier, Chris Ferguson, Jeremy Ausmus, Brian Rast, Josh Arieh, Shaun Deeb, and Daniel Negreanu.
Seiver’s six bracelets demonstrate his range of skills across poker variations:
- Bracelet 1: 2008 WSOP (Event 21) $5K No Limit Hold’em
- Bracelet 2: 2018 WSOP (Event 52) $10K Limit Hold’em Championship
- Bracelet 3: 2019 WSOP (Event 62) $10K Razz
- Bracelet 4: 2022 WSOP (Event 3) $2,500 No Limit Hold’em Freezeout
- Bracelet 5: 2024 WSOP (Event 10) $10K Omaha Hi-Lo 8-or-Better Championship
- Bracelet 6: 2024 WSOP (Event 40) $1,500 Razz
It is notable that Seiver plays a wide range of buy-ins and variations. It’s also evident that he focused much of his early poker career on poker online, and the bracelets became more important to his legacy as he got older.
After winning his first bracelet of this summer, he spoke to reporters about tournament players. “They always want to win,” he said, “but I came into this summer with a real desire to try and win as many bracelets as I can.”
Upon claiming the second bracelet this week, Seiver expanded his goal. “I really, truly want to win Player of the Year this year,” he admitted. “I’m going to do as much as I can to make that happen.”
That also goes for an eventual nod for the Poker Hall of Fame. While he can’t qualify for a nomination until he turns 40 in April 2025, he hopes to put his poker abilities and career accomplishments on display ahead of that time. Legacy means something to Seiver. It means a lot, in fact.
Speaking of his career thus far, Seiver posts some interesting stats:
- Number of WSOP bracelets: 6
- Number of WSOP cashes: 77
- Amount of WSOP earnings: $6,942,508
- Amount of live tournament earnings overall: $26,262,994
- Position on all-time global tournament earnings list: 30th
There’s levels to this shit. pic.twitter.com/9TLOfBrUPb
— Scott Seiver (@scott_seiver) June 17, 2024
*Feature photo credit: Eloy Cabacas for PokerNews