Bansi wins second WSOP bracelet

06/05/2010

Pras Bansi, a 32-year-old pro with the UK team Hit Squad picked up his second World Series of Poker winner’s bracelet this week when he was victorious in the $1 500 buy-in NLHE, taking home the first prize of $515 501 after besting a field of 2 092 players.

Despite an early chip lead by Vincent Jacques, whom he defeated in the heads up, Bansi ultimately led the 23 survivors through to the final table of nine and continued to dominate the game through to the end.

The final placings looked like this:

1.Praz Bansi - $515,501
2.Vincent Jacques - $320,913
3.Calvin Kordus - $223,069
4.David Tuthill- $160,654
5.Tomer Berda - $117,416
6.Donald Offord - $86,858
7.Hugh Bell - $65,097
8.David “Doc” Sands - $49,409
9.Kyle Knecht - $37,943

The bracelet is the second in Bansi's WSOP career to date; he was previously victorious in the 2006 $1 000 NLHE event.

Other members of the Hit Squad are Chaz and Sunny Chattha, Dave Akenhead and Karl Mahrenholz.

Adam Dava finally prevailed in the hard-fought endurance test that was event 3 – the $1 000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em competition, which pulled in a field of 4 345, giving Dava an impressive winner’s prize of $625,872 after he beat Deepak Bhatti in a protracted heads up.

Dava said the win was the realisation of a long-held ambition. "I've accomplished something I've been trying to achieve for a while," he said. "You've got to get lucky. I was fortunate to get here."

In the $5 000 buy-in NLHE Shootout event, a strong field of top players has been whittled down to a six-handed finale, which will involve Nicolas Levi, Neil Channing, Stu Rutter, Joshua Tieman, Brent Hanks and Joseph Elpayaa – all going hell-for-leather after the main prize of $441,692.

Plenty of poker talent was on display in event 7 – the $2.500 buy-in 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball, which played down to 87 survivors and then a final table led by David Chiu, who is battling it out with Peter Gelenscer, Don McNamara, Raphael Zimmerman, Tad Jurgens, Leonard Martin, Shunjiro Uchida and Jameson Painter.

The talent of the field is clear from some of the eliminations: Pat Poels, Ted Forrest, David Baker and Farzad Bonyadi, Barry Greenstein, Greg Mueller, Huck Seed, Bill Chen and Tony G were all in contention at some point.

Event 8 – the $1.500 NLHE predictably attracted a good entry field of some 2 341 hopefuls, with a hectic start that saw two thousand of them shot down on the first day. The remainder will fight on in Day 2 in a field that still contains formidable opponents like Phil Hellmuth, John-Robert Bellande and Sam Trickett.