Zinno, Seiver Add to Their WSOP Bracelet Collections
This summer, it seems like there have been a lot of players winning tournaments who already had WSOP hardware in their trophy cases, though last week, there was a long streak of first-time bracelet winners. Well, it looks like the trend may have shifted back to repeat winners. Of note are two of poker’s elite adding to their jewelry collection: Anthony Zinno and Scott Seiver.
Event #60: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better – Anthony Zinno
Sometimes I feel like people don’t talk about Anthony Zinno enough. Maybe they do, but this is a guy for whom you could make a Poker Hall of Fame argument already and he is not even eligible yet. He won the World Poker Tour Season XIII Player of the Year award after winning back-to-back WPT titles and has three WPT Main Event victories total. That ties him for second all-time with Chino Rheem, Carlos Mortensen, and Gus Hansen, one behind Darren Elias, the man he edged out for the WPT POY award.
With his win in $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better, a title that is very much with copying-and-pasting rather than typing out, Zinno now has two career WSOP bracelets and more than $3.1 million in WSOP earnings across 51 cashes.
“This one, I’m super-proud,” he said of his second bracelet to WSOP.com afterward. “Because I’ve been practicing a lot of Omaha Hi-Lo… for the past two years, specifically. I was actually really excited to play this specific event and the $10K. It’s pretty cool when you work on one game particularly hard, and then it works.”
Unlike this writer, Zinno gets plenty of sleep, which he partially credits for his success. He said eight hours a night is a must. (You mean four to five hours isn’t going to work? Good think I don’t play poker for a living.) Somehow, he eats well, too, making me feel even worse about myself.
Zinno also talked about just how much he loves poker, how much he has enjoyed branching out and trying different games, even if he isn’t good at them.
“I love gaming. I think gaming is great for the brain,” he said, which my 10-year-old will throw in my face repeatedly if I let him see this. “I think society underrates how much gaming can be good for people to learn how to learn.”
Scott Seiver
Photo credit: WSOP.com
Event #62: $10,000 Razz Championship – Scott Seiver
A lot of people, if you tell them you entered a $10,000 razz tournament, will cock their head at you, squint, and walk away. Razz is the game everybody loves to hate and spending that much money on a tourney seems insane. But for Scott Seiver, haters can screw off, as he just won his third career bracelet.
As one might expect in an event like this, it was a fairly small field at just 116 entrants and the final table was absolutely stacked. In addition to Seiver, the table was filled with the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Andre Akkari, David Bach, Andrey Zhigalov, current WSOP Player of the Year leader Daniel Zack (his fourth final table this summer!), and ugh, Chris Ferguson. Thank heavens Seiver won – we didn’t need to see another Ferguson triumph. He’s already nominated for the Poker Hall of Fame. I think that’s enough for one year.
Seiver said afterward that even though these sorts of final tables are trying, he loves the competition.
“These limit events at the World Series are really the only time all year you get to play these tournaments for a real buy-in against good players. It’s like really fun to get to do,” he said.
At the same time, he thought he was in as good a position as he could be.
“Honestly, when we got down to nine players, I was pretty happy with the table draw. There were some unbelievably difficult players at that table. I was separated far enough away from some of the best that I was hopeful that I could find the spots and do what you can,” he commented.
Seiver now has nearly $5 million in World Series of Poker winnings and an astounding $23.8 million overall in live tournaments. For all of his success, though, he had to fight hard for that second bracelet. His first came back in 2008 in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, while he was not able to notch his second victory until last year in the $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship. It goes to show how difficult it is to win at the World Series of Poker, even for a guy who has won other prestigious poker events.
Despite bracelets in back-to-back years plus other final tables, he has no plans to start loading up his WSOP tournament schedule. He said it is too easy to get burned out, both in tournaments and in the cash games at the Rio, so he likes to strike a balance. No doubt, though, that both he and Zinno will be ready to go for the WSOP Main Event later this week.
Lead photo credit: WSOP.com
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