Just past the halfway mark of the 2024 World Series of Poker, yet another player won his fifth career gold bracelet. This time, it was a name in poker that is familiar to the pro contingent but tough to pronounce and relatively unknown to the recreational poker community. Yuri Dzivielevski won Event 53, the nine-game mix event. More importantly, it was the Brazilian’s fifth bracelet in five years – quite a feat.
Mixed Game Mania
The trend for the past decade has been for players to expand their repertoire in poker, to go beyond Hold’em. They usually move first to Omaha and then on to more mixed games, from stud to lowball and razz to triple draw. That interest has reflected in each year’s updated WSOP schedule, as more mixed games attract larger numbers each year.
The eight-game mix has been popular in recent years, but in 2023, the WSOP added a nine-game mix. This consists of Limit Hold’em and No Limit Hold’em, Razz, Pot Limit Omaha and PLO Hi-Lo 8-or-Better, Seven-Card Stud and Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo 8-or-Better, No Limit Lowball Draw and Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw.
There were 361 players willing to put up the $3K buy-in that year, but interest grew even more in 2024. The final tally for the $3K Nine-Game Mix this year was:
- Total entries: 379
- Total prize pool: $1,011,930
- Players paid: 57
- Minimum payout: $6,080
- First-place prize: $215,982
Yuri Dzivielevski was fourth in chips when Day 1 of the tournament came to a close, and he finished Day 2 in fifth position on the leaderboard.
The third and final day of the tournament saw Dzivielevski confident and ready. He busted Koray Aldemir in 15th place to climb into second chip position but lost ground when Philip Hui doubled through him. As competitors like Ben Yu, Adam Friedman, and John Esposito departed the field, Richard Ashby busted in ninth place to allow the final eight to unofficially set the final table.
Work to Do at Final Table
Joseph Couden soon exited in eighth place, followed by Bradley Jansen in seventh. Dzivielevski then took chips from Ashish Gupta, Masafumi Iijima, and Tomasz Gluszko to regain the chip lead by the next break. Dzivielevski took some from Nicholas Julia as well.
Scott Bohlman busted Gupta in sixth place, as Julia took chips back from Dzivielevski and then some from Bohlman. Dzivielevski took from Gluszko in a Single Draw hand, though Julia took those from Dziivielevski in Stud-8. Bohman and Dzivielevski set the stage for Gluszko’s fifth-place elimination, and Dzivielevski took a sizeable pot from Bohlman to climb over 7M chips.
Upon the four players’ return from a dinner break, Bohlman couldn’t better his short stack and busted in fourth place.
The final three exchanged chips in tense hands, with Iijima taking over the lead from Dzivielevski. All three players soon hovered around the 5M mark, and they all took on the role of chip leader at one point. Julia started to run away with that position at one point, though, as he had more than 11M chips. Iijima did double through Julia twice over the course of a few rounds, but Julia finally did bust Iijima in third place.
Julia took 12.3M chips into head-up play against the 2,855,000 of Dzivielevski. The latter won a pot but then lost to dip to 1.8M before doubling twice to climb back. But it was a tough slog for Dzivielevski, who didn’t take a notable lead until a NLHE hand and then a Stud hand. It was still in Stud that Julia put it all on the line, and Dzivielevski pulled off the win.
- 1st place: Yuri Dzivielevski (Brazil) $215,982
- 2nd place: Nicholas Julia (USA) $142,182
- 3rd place: Masafumi Iijima (Japan) $95,587
- 4th place: Scott Bohlman (USA) $65,654
- 5th place: Tomasz Gluszko (Poland) $46,094
- 6th place: Ashish Gupta (Australia) $33,095
- 7th place: Bradley Jansen (USA) $24,312
First in Brazil
Yuri Martins Dzivielevski is actually first atop the Brazil all-time live tournament earnings list on the Hendon Mob. His $6,556,976 in lifetime live tournament winnings consists of scores dating back to 2010 and 2011 in Brazil and 2013 in the United States.
The Brazilian pro has won tournaments at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and the Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP), including the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final in Sao Paulo in 2015, European Poker Tour (EPT), and – of course – the World Series of Poker.
As for his first four WSOP bracelets:
- 2019 WSOP Event 51 ($2,500 Mixed O-8/Stud-8) for $213,750
- 2020 WSOP Online Event 42 ($400 Plossus) for $221,557
- 2023 WSOP Event 47 ($1,500 HORSE) for $207,688
- 2023 WSOP Online Event 24 ($10K PLO Championship) for $368,343
Still just in his early 30s, Dzivielevski is known widely online as “theNERDguy” and had significant success in the online poker streets, including numerous World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) titles on PokerStars and titles on GGPoker. The former artist and musician chose poker over college and has supported his family, including wife and son, with his earnings.
After winning his fifth piece of WSOP gold, he told PokerNews, “I think each bracelet has a special feeling, a special memory. I cannot compare it to other bracelets. It’s always an amazing feeling.”
*Feature photo credit: Regina Cortina for WSOP