Martin Nielson walks away with first WSOP bracelet

There were five players who returned for the final day of Event #97: $10,000 Short Deck No-Limit Hold'em at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas and it was the start-of-day chip leader Martin Nielsen who walked away with his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet along with $270,160.

Nielsen overcame a star-studded field of 106 entries, which generated a prize pool of $895,300 in one of the last high-roller events of the series. Although he came back to Day 3 as the chip leader, it wasn't a cakewalk for the Faroe Islands Native as he sat down with some of the best players in the world, including poker Hall of Famer and legend John Juanda. In the end, it came down to a heads-up battle between Nielsen and Hong Wei Yu, and the short-deck specialist found a way to come out on top.

"It's so weird, though, I thought I would be nervous," said Nielsen after his victory, "I don't know, I am a full-time short-deck cash player, but I mostly play online on GG."

The craziest part is this is only his second cash of the series, with his first coming from a min-cash in a $200 Daily Deepstack for $403. When asked what made him register in this high roller, he simply said, "Well I am a short deck player, so this was my most important tournament of the summer, the $200 was just for fun." With this win, this jumps his Hendon Mob live earnings to $300,000, which he says will be the biggest from his home country.

There were five players that returned to the felt at 1 p.m. local time and after a small delay, the cards were in the air. The players waited for him to arrive after pitching the cards on the first hand but it didn't take long after that for the chips to start flying.

Early in the day, Juanda moved all in preflop with queen-ten of hearts and was called by Eric Wasserson with ace-king of diamonds to put him at risk. Wasserson flopped a king and held to eliminate Juanda in 5th place.

After that, the action slowed way down as the players were so deep, with the average stack well over 100 antes for most of the day. Wasserson looked like he was making a run when he became chip leader after winning a big pot against Nielsen but then two hands later lost a big cooler to Ivan Ermin to double him up.

Wasserson then lost most of his stack in a huge pot against Nielsen when he flopped a set of eights on an eight-queen-ace board against the ace-nine of Nielsen. Wasserson almost had him drawing dead but Nielsen hit a miracle runout of seven-six to hit a straight on the river. Soon after that, Wasserson moved all in with king-nine suited and was called by Ermin with king-queen. Wasserson turned a pair of nines to take the lead but Ermin hit a gutshot straight on the river to take the pot and sent Wasserson out in fourth place.

After his exit, it was two full levels before Ermin was sent home in 3rd after getting it in preflop with jack-ten suited against the ace-queen of Nielsen. The flop of ten-eight-queen gave Ermin the lead with a pair of tens but the king-jack runout gave Nielsen a straight on the river to send him out in third.

After this pot, Nielsen came into heads-up play against Yu with a dominating 3:1 chip lead. It only took around 15 minutes of play before the two managed to get it all in the middle with Yu holding jack-ten of spades versus the pocket kings of Nielsen. The queen-eight-six-ten turn with two spades gave Yu a ton of outs to hit, but the blank ten on the river did not do it and he was eliminated as the runner-up while Nielsen was crowned champion and adorned with the gold bracelet.

Final table results:
Place Player Country Payout
1 Martin Nielsen Faroe Islands $270,160
2 Hong Wei Yu United States $167,340
3 Ivan Ermin Russia $118,037
4 Eric Wasserson United States $85,124
5 John Juanda Indonesia $62,793
6 Nobuaki Sasaki Japan $47,406
7 Chris Brewer United States $36,648