Erik Seidel Wins His Ninth WSOP Bracelet in the Super MILLION$ High Roller for $977,842

Erik Seidel cemented his status as one of the greatest poker players of all-time with a ninth WSOP bracelet. He defeated Uruguay's Francisco Benitez heads-up to win Event #11: $10,000 Super MILLION$ High Roller of the 2021 WSOP Online on GGPoker for $977,842.

Seidel becomes the first player with more than five WSOP bracelets to win an online WSOP bracelet after defeating Phil Hellmuth heads-up in Event #4: $2,500 Limit Hold'em for $168,000 back in 1992.

Final Table Recap

Against a star-studded final table that featured two former Super MILLION$ champions, Seidel battled back from seventh in chips at the start of the final table to clinch his ninth WSOP bracelet. It didn't take long for nine to become eight following the elimination of Rui Ferreira, and just half an hour later Seidel had maneuvered himself from his starting position to first in chips ahead of Benitez. The lead would change hands back and forth as Isaac Baron fell in seventh and former Super MILLION$ champion Claas Segebrecht was sent to the rail in sixth.

Benitez then started to edge ahead of the chasing pack, with the Uruguayan's chip stack growing to more than 25 million as the short stacks continued to battle it out. This battling caught out Seidel, as following the eliminations of Joachim Haraldstad and Chin-Wei Chien in sixth and fifth place respectively, the WSOP legend found himself bottom of the pile, albeit with 30 big blinds.

It took a cooler for the deadlock to be broken four-handed, with Benitez the beneficiary. Holding queens he snap-called the shove of Shyngis Satubayev with tens, to send the Kazakh player to the rail and open up an enormous chip lead, now holding more than the rest of the chips in play.

And that chip lead would grow even further following the elimination of Thomas Muehloecker, with Benitez again snap-calling a shove this time with ace-queen against Muehloecker's ace-ten to hold more than a 4:1 chip lead heads-up.

Event #11: $10,000 Super MILLION$ High Roller Final Table Results

PLACE	PLAYER	COUNTRY	PAYOUT (USD)
1	Erik Seidel	Canada	$977,842
2	Francisco Benitez	Uruguay	$759,419
3	Thomas Muehloecker	Austria	$589,785
4	Shyngis Satubayev	Montenegro	$458,043
5	Chin-Wei "davidchien88" Chien	Taiwan	$355,729
6	Joachim Haraldstad	Norway	$276,269
7	Claas Segebrecht	Austria	$214,558
8	Isaac Baron	Mexico	$166,632
9	Rui Ferreira	Brazil	$129,410

Heads-Up Play

There were just 20 minutes of heads-up play, but it was action-packed from the off with Seidel scoring a huge double-up with queens against jacks, flopping a set to cut Benitez's lead. Not only did this get Seidel back into the contest, but just a handful of hands later it was Seidel opening up a 2:1 lead and looking to close out the match.

The final hand (350,000/750,000) saw Erik Seidel limp with ace-eight of hearts and Francisco Benitez three-bet to 2.8 million with ace-king offsuit. Seidel thought about it before moving all in, putting Benitez to the test for his last 26 million, which at this stage was still almost 35 big blinds. Benitez called.

The four-ten-jack flop with two hearts gave Seidel a flush draw and the turn was the ace. Seidel needed an eight or a heart on the river, with the three of hearts giving him the nut-flush flush to eliminate Benitez and secure victory.