Brock Parker Wins Back-To-Back WSOP Events

Brock “t soprano” Parker achieved a seemingly unachievable goal Wednesday evening by winning the USD 2,500 Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em event at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), and picking up his second bracelet in four days.

Parker bested a field of 1,068 players to win his first ever No Limit Hold’em event at the WSOP. He overcame a chip deficit to defeat Joe “floes” Serock heads up, and take home another massive payday of USD 552,745. With the victory Parker has now staked his claim as the king of short-handed events, as he defeated PokerStars Team Pro Daniel Negreanu on June 8 heads up to win the USD 2,500 Six-handed Limit event.

“I like to play more hands,” said Parker about his short-handed success. “Playing nine-handed is pretty boring. I guess Six-Handed gets me more motivated because I get to play in a lot of pots. It’s more fun.”

Parker, called an “online legend” by friend and fellow poker pro Alex Bortah, has been playing tournaments at the WSOP since 2004 but hadn’t made a No Limit final table until Wednesday. He considered himself a better Limit Hold’em player after having reached the third final table last week, but following his win last night he said he might put more time into No Limit Hold’em events in future.

Youth is starting to become a theme at the final tables of this year’s WSOP. Four of the top six finishers in the USD 2,500 Six Handed No Limit event were aged 23 or below, including runner-up Joe Serock. The online heads-up specialist was the chip leader going into the final day but was terrorized by Parker in the format he knows best. Serock made several attempts to take pots away from Parker by three-betting preflop but Parker always came back with a four-bet, forcing Serock to fold. According to Joe he was card dead throughout most of the heads-up play.

When Serock finally did pick up a good hand it was trumped by Parker’s better hand. On the final hand of the tournament Serock raised to 200K at 40K/80K blinds and Parker re-raised to one million.

Parker’s hand held up, as he made a set of queens on the river and captured the title. Serock was sent home with USD 341,783. Online star Russell Crane took third place in the event for USD 220,633. After being short stacked for most of the day Crane moved all in over the top of a Serock raise with J-T and Serock called with A-9. Joe made two pairs on the turn and was able to dodge a straight draw to send Crane to the rail.

Jesse Rios was the fourth place finisher when he got his entire stack in preflop with A-J against Parker’s A-Q. Parker’s hand held up and Rios, at age 33 the oldest player at the final table, left with USD 148,661. It was his fourth cash at this year’s World Series of Poker.

Alex Wilson (fifth place) and Clayton Newman (sixth place) were the other members of the final table. It took three hours to finally eliminate a short-stacked Newman, who moved all-in with pocket twos and was called by Jesse Rios with pocket tens.

Parker took over control of the WSOP Player of the Year lead with the victory and plans on playing Thursday’s USD 1,500 No Limit Event #24. “I’m excited about the Player of the Year,” he said during a post-tournament interview. “I want to try for that, for sure. Especially now that they are making a big deal out of it.” Here are the final results from the USD 2,500 Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em event:

1. Brock Parker – USD 552,745
2. Joe Serock - USD 341,783
3. Russell Crane - USD 220,633
4. Jesse Rios - USD 148,661
5. Alexander Wison - USD 104,323
6. Clayton Newman - USD 76,123

Two more bracelets will be awarded on Thursday as the USD 1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em and USD 3,000 HORSE events will play down to a winner. Twenty-one players are still alive in the USD 3,000 HORSE field, making for what should be a long day at the tables. Those remaining include Matt Hawrilenko, Chau Giang, Gavin Smith, Ylon Schwartz, and James Van Alstyne. They are all chasing chip leader Zac Fellows, who goes into the final day with 470,000 chips. A first-place prize of USD 311,899 will be awarded to the winner of that event.