Michael Lech is already well known on the WSOP Circuit as a successful tour grinder with eight WSOP rings to his name. The poker pro announced himself to the rest of the poker world on Monday with a victory in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Freezeout bracelet event.
Lech defeated William Romaine (SlaweelRyam) heads up to secure his first WSOP bracelet and the second-largest cash of his poker career to the tune of $164,249. Through the first 13 events of the WSOP Online series, Lech has cashed seven times.
This victory earned Lech the 80th WSOP cash of his career and his ninth WSOP-related win spanning across five different countries (the United States, Mexico, France, Italy, and Sint Maarten). Lech had a strong performance in last year’s WSOP bracelet events with eight cashes, including a 138th-place finish in the 2019 Main Event. The shift to online play this year doesn’t appear to be slowing him down.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
What’s your guess on over/under 10 Stellas while playing? 😂😂😂@Miguel_Fiesta 🏆
Congrats on your 1st @WSOP bracelet and 7th cash this series you fuckin beast ♠️🍺🔥 pic.twitter.com/XhEIRsLjz9
— Vanessa Kade (@VanessaKade) July 14, 2020
The final table of Event #13 also featured Connor Drinan (666666) and Megan Milburn (wolverine17). Milburn was caught up in controversy earlier this series when her perceived slowroll set Mike Matusow off on his now-infamous rant.
$1,500 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Freezeout Results
- Michael Lech (MiguelFiesta) — $164,249|
- William Romaine (SlaweelRyam) — $110,979
- Sean Seifert (SPS8710) — $77,408
- Chun Lin Mo (Bingooo) — $56,599
- Paul Dewald (ToTheMoon) — $40,600
- Connor Drinan (666666) — $29,964
- Christopher Fuchs (Pokeher2014) — $22,381
- Megan Milburn (wolverine17) — $18,404
- Michael Dolle (wsopmd) — $14,982
Plenty of Notables in the Mix
Daniel Negreanu ran deep in the High Roller event and had a chance to move into the top 15 in chips with just 27 players remaining. Then, he got the majority of his stack in with a pair of queens against Paul Dewald’s pair of sixes. A six on the flop knocked Negreanu down to just five big blinds, and he would find himself on the rail just a few hands later with a 27th-place finish for $6,381.
Negreanu’s elimination left the pro to sweat Connor Drinan’s run. Drinan and Negreanu have a six-figure bracelet bet in place for this series, and Drinan was chip leader when Negreanu was eliminated. Negreanu faded the worst-case scenario as Drinan went on to finish the event in sixth place.
Ryan Depaulo (Joeyisamush) also made a deep run on Monday night, just one night after winning Event #13 from his car in a Whole Foods parking lot in New Jersey. Depaulo went on to finish in 23rd-place for $6,381.
Other Notable Finishes
- 53rd Jason Somerville (haterade) – $3,977
- 61st Jon Turner (havuuuuuc) – $3422
- 65th Chris Ferguson (Camdi) – $2867
- 80th Shaun Deeb (Ddtgg) – $2497
- 86th Chris Moorman (Robotbob47) – $2220
Price of Poker Going Up
One day after Event #13 featured the second-highest buy-in of the online series at $1500, Tuesday’s No-Limit Hold’em High Roller event raises the stakes with a buy-in of $3,200. And unlike Monday’s freezeout event, two re-entries per player are allowed in this one.
A $3,200 entry into Event #14 gets you a 25,000-chip starting stack. Blinds will go up every 20 minutes instead of every 15, as has been standard throughout the series. Even with the larger chip stacks and longer blind levels, the structure ensures that this one will still get super shallow in the late stages.
