German Pro Dominik Nitsche Wins WSOP $1k And Bracelet No.3

German pro Dominik Nitsche topped a 2,043 player field at the WSOP $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Event to win a third career WSOP bracelet, and collect the $335,659 first-place prize. Following his remarkable achievement, the 23-year-old who now boasts $3,725,806 in live tournament earnings, said:
“It feels really good to win this one. Of course, the first one feels really great, and so does the second one, and so does the third. They all feel good in different ways because this is the top prize on poker. This is what we play for.”
Event 21 $1,000 No Limit Hold’em attracted a good-sized field to the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino to create a prize pool worth $1,838,700. Amongst the big names then cashing in at the event was Ed Miller in 127th ($2,289), Erik Seidel in 83rd ($2,941), David Williams in 65th ($3,962), JC Tran in 38th ($6,692), and Mickey Petersen in 11th ($15,334).
By the time the final table of nine had been reached, Dominik Nitsche and UK’s David Burt were the only non-US players at the table. After Burt was eliminated on the third hand, Dominik Nitsche was then the lone European at the table and subsequently scored his first knock-out after being dealt Q-Q and sending Jeff Gross (A-K) to the rail in 6th for $56,549. Nitsche (10-10) followed up by doing likewise to Thayer Rasmussen (A-K) in 5th ($76,443), and Zac Gruneberg in 4th ($104,594).
After Dave D´Alesandro (Q-Q) eliminated Bob Bounahra in 3rd ($145,229), the heads-up phase of the competition subsequently got underway with D´Alesandro holding a 4.36m to 1.77m chip advantage over Nitsche. Luckily for the German he managed to double up when his 10-9 shove bested his opponent’s A-Q, and 92-hands later he was still grinding away when he managed to nose ahead after his A-9 bested D´Alesandro pocket fours. A few hands later it was all over after Nitsche (K-6) called D´Alesandro (Q-7) all-in shove and the dealer put out a K-Q-6-A-A board.
Dave D´Alesandro then had to be satisfied with a runner-up finish worth $208,931, while Dominik Nitsche claimed a third career WSOP bracelet. Commenting on his victory, Nitsche said: “The weekend events are full of inexperienced players and they’re (the tournaments) are easy to navigate in the early levels. But then you get great players with a lot of chips like Jeff Gross and towards the end you have to get lucky with your table draw. The biggest thing in this tournament that helped me win was my table draw. I had a lot of inexperienced players that always folded to my min-raises. I tripled my stack early in Day 2 and it never broke.”
Final Table Results:
1 Dominik Nitsche  $335,659
2 Dave D´Alesandro $208,931
3 Bob Bounahra        $145,229
4 Zac Gruneberg    $104,594
5 Thayer Rasmussen $76,443
6 Jeff Gross        $56,549
7 Eric Milas        $42,382
8 Billy Horan        $32,168
9 David Burt        $24,702