While the Cadillac of poker, no limit hold’em (NLHE), is the most common form of poker seen in poker rooms around the world in 2024, it’s in the mixed games that the real poker talent rises to the top. While mastery of NLHE is a difficult task and takes a lot of study, mastering the nuances of other variants of the game, in addition to hold’em, is an extra level of commitment.
That’s why bracelets like the Dealer’s Choice, 8-Game, and HORSE are so coveted — winning one of those events demonstrates the player can manage any game thrown at them. And into the mix of mixed-game poker marches the newer format of 9-Game.
The most recent edition of the mixed-game format was completed in Las Vegas late Saturday evening, with Brazilian phenom Yuri Dzivielevski taking down the gold bracelet and just shy of $216k. That marks Dzivielevski’s fifth bracelet in five years, a run that is quickly marking him for poker greatness.
After the win, Dzivielevski talked about his strategy for the game. “Each hand is a puzzle, and I just give my best with what I have. I just try to solve each puzzle.”
Final Table Results for 2024 WSOP Event #53 9-Game
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 |  Yuri Dzivielevski | Brazil | $215,982 |
| 2 |  Nicholas Julia | United States | $142,182 |
| 3 |  Masafumi Iijima | Japan | $95,587 |
| 4 | Scott Bohlman | United States | $65,654 |
| 5 |  Tomasz Gluszko | Austria | $46,094 |
| 6 |  Ashish Gupta | Australia | $33,095 |
| 7 | Bradley Jansen | United States | $24,312 |
| 8 | Joseph Couden | United States | $18,284 |
Five for Five
With well over $6 million in wins going into this series, Dzivielevski is no stranger to poker success. This win marks his fifth bracelet at WSOP in five consecutive years, showing a consistency that is virtually unmatched by his peers.
The Brazilian got his start in the game back in 2010 with his first recorded cash in the Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP) Main Event that year for a modest cash of almost $1,500. He bagged another BSOP Main Event cash in 2011 before he opened his WSOP career with his first two cashes in 2013, including 12th place in Event #42.
After that, Dzivielevski went from strength to strength with multiple results every year leading up to the present. Including the 9-Game bracelet from last night, his lifetime earnings are now pushing toward $6.6 million.
It’s a rare achievement in poker to win five bracelets — according to the WSOP website, fewer than 40 players in the history of the game have five bracelets or more so this win puts the Brazilian in a rarified company that includes other five-timers like brothers Michael and Robert Mizrachi, Nick Schulman, John Juanda, and Benny Glaser, among others.
Dzivielevski is also looking forward to the $50k Poker Players Championship (PPC) game later in the series. Arguably the most sought-after bracelet in the whole series, outside of the Main Event, Dzivielevski was runner-up in the big game last year to Daniel “Jungleman” Cates and with the PPC playing in the 9-game format, the Brazilian is hoping this success here translates to the big game as well.
9-Game Action
The three-day event kicked off on June 20 with 379 bracelet hopefuls sitting down for a smaller preview of the the format of the coveted Poker Players Championship (PPC) event. That set the total prizes at just over $1 million with the winner set to pocket $215,982 along with the bracelet.
When the dust settled on Day 1, UK grinder Richard Ashby led the way as one of two players to bag more than 400k on the opening day. Ashby would ultimately fall in 9th place, just shy of the final table, but his $18,284 score still represented about a 6x bump to his buy-in of $3k.
Ashby was among 139 returning players for Day 2 with only the top 57 players expected to get cash for their troubles. It only took a few hours on Day 2 to play down to 57, and by the time they bagged for the night, there were just 16 players left in contention for Day 3.
Ashish Gupta led the way into the final day of play with more than 2.6 million, around 800k more than second-place Adam Friedman and more than a million ahead of third-place Scott Bohlman. For his part, Dzivielevski bagged the fifth stack for Day 3, about 1.3 million behind the leader.
It took just under 4 hours to play down from the final 16 returning players to the final table of 8. Day 1 chip leader Ashby was the unfortunate final table bubble player in 9th. Once they hit the final table, action slowed a bit and it took another nine hours to decide the winner.
Along the way, start-of-day leader Gupta fell in 5th place for $33,095 while the 3rd place stack of Scott Bohlman got him all the way to 4th place in the standings. In the final analysis, it came down to heads-up between Dzivielevski and American Nicholas Julia.
It wouldn’t be a cakewalk for Dzivielevski. Julia has just over $300k in live earnings, but among his six recorded cashes is a WSOP gold bracelet from 2021 in this very format, the 9-game, though his 2021 bracelet came in a six-handed variant. That means that fully one-third of his recorded cashes are a bracelet and a runner-up finish in WSOP bracelet 9-game action.
About the 9-Game
9-Game is a newer mixed-game format that is an addition to the 8-game format. While 8-game takes the standard HORSE rotation of limit hold’em, limit Omaha 8 or better, Stud, Stud 8 or Better, and razz, and adds NLHE, pot limit Omaha, and triple draw deuce, the 9-game also throws in the single-draw variant of the deuce-to-seven lowball game.
9-Game Rotation
- No Limit Hold’em
- Seven Card Stud
- Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better
- Razz
- Pot-Limit Omaha
- Limit Hold’em
- No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw
- Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better
- 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw
* Images courtesy of WSOP and PokerNews
