Phil Galfond Wins 2-7 NL Draw Championship for Second WSOP Bracelet

Phil Galfond, has topped a small, but very tough field of 77 players to claim the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship. Despite of there being fewer than 80 players in the field, the amount of talent gathered at one place certainly did not make it a walk in the park for Galfond.

Phil Galfond, now a two-time gold bracelet winner, is recognized as one of the brightest minds in poker community. This win makes it his 15th WSOP cash and also his second 2-7 championship final table. However, Galfond finished fourth in last year’s event, without increasing his bracelet count.

Galfond's live career earnings are now over $2,000,000 as he added the first place prize of $224,383 to his bankroll. After Phil scooped up his second bracelet, he explained that this win means a lot to him, especially because he managed to beat a field of such tough opponents.

It has been seven years since Galfond has won a gold bracelet. It was back in 2008 in a $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event that Phil has managed to beat a world-class field of 152 players. The 2008 win was quite similar to this one, as the final table was made up of very tough opponents such as Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda and Phil Hellmuth.

This year, 77 players in the $10k 2-7 No Limit Draw Championship generated a total prize pool of $723,800, which was divided amongst top 14 finishers. Another testimony to just how difficult this victory must have been is the fact that 9 of 14 top finishers were gold bracelet winners and six of those had more than one bracelet to their respective name.

Easily the most decorated player at the final table was the veteran of the game Erik Seidel. Seidel has eight bracelets to his name and this was his third cash in the $10k events this year alone. However, Seidel fell short of winning his number nine as he finished fourth to take home $59,532.

Bernard Lee who has $1,000,000 in WSOP earnings finished eight, winning $19,824. Sixth place finisher Eli Elezra made his second final table of the 2015 WSOP but couldn't go all the way.

Phil Galfond's win is even more impressive as he managed to beat Nick Schulman in the heads-up play. Schulman, who has already won this event twice (2009 and 2012) couldn't master his third title. If he had won, he would be recognized as someone who won the same WSOP event three times, joining the likes of Stu Ungar and Johnny Moss. This fact actually started a vivid discussion on 2+2 forums. Schulman was in a chip lead during the early stages of heads up play but eventually Galfond managed to get the upper hand and proceeded to win the title and the accompanying bracelet.

Phil Galfond, known as 'OMGClayAiken' on the virtual felt, mentioned that this was one of the smaller prize pools compared to some of the other events. Despite the fact that he plays regularly for the cash game pots the size of the first place prize, Phil explained that this victory still had a very special meaning for him.