John Racener Claims WSOP $10,000 Dealers Choice Bracelet

John Racener has won WSOP Event #17: $10,000 Dealers Choice – 6 Handed Championship, after besting a field of 102 players over three days at the Rio in Las Vegas to claim the title, as well as first place prize of $273,962.
Despite now boosting his career earnings to $9,516,468, the victory represents the 31-year-old Florida pro’s first gold bracelet, having come close in 2010, but ultimately finishing that year’s Main Even second to Jonathan Duhamel for a $5,545,955 payday. Having claimed the coveted bracelet, an achievement high on any professional player’s list of accolades, Racener commented:
“I’ve been wanting this forever. I’ve got so many seconds and thirds. I have over $10 million in earnings, but no gold. I’ve just been wanting to win so bad. I didn’t even look at the prize pool. I didn’t even know what first place was. I just wanted to win the bracelet. It’s all I really care about.”
The $10,000 Dealers Choice event featured a prize pool of $930,600, and amongst the big name pros seeing a return on their buy-ins was Todd Brunson in 15th ($14,783), Lyle Berman in 14th ($14,783), Tommy Hang in 11th ($18,880), Shawn Buchanan in 10th ($24,546), Ben Yu in 9th ($24,546), and James Obst in 8th ($32,474).
John Racener subsequently entered the final table in pole position, before taking out Dennis Eichhorn (4th), and Chris Klodnicki (3rd) to progress through to heads-up play where he faced Russia’s Viacheslav Zhukov for the title. In a No-Limit Hold’em round, Racener’s A-J then took out his opponent’s pocket sevens to claim the bracelet, after which he revealed a white t-shirt under his hoodie with the words “For Mom” etched on the front.
“I always said to myself that I wanted to win my first bracelet for my mom,” explained Racener. “She’s always been my biggest fan, and she still is from up above. No matter what time of the day it was back home, with three-hour time [difference], she would always stay up and sweat me online all night. Even if she had to get up for work at 8 a.m. She would stay up and sweat me until she had to go to work. I just really wanted to win the first one for her.”
Final Table Results:
1: John Racener $273,962
2: Viacheslav Zhukov $169,323
3: Chris Klodnicki $117,786
4: Dennis Eichhorn $83,263
5: Mike Matusow $59,827
6: Schuyler Thornton $43,707