It was never going to be an easy run for Xixiang Luo in the $25k HORSE game at the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) but when play got to the final table, Luo was facing down two of the greatest in the game, and a couple of the hottest players of the summer in Scott Seiver and Phil Ivey.
Among the other names to grace the 9-handed final table were Michael Moncek, David Benyamine, and Adam Friedman. In total, 120 entries ponied up $25,000 to play the mixed game high roller, digging a prize pool that was $2,820,000 deep.
Event #96: $25,000 High Roller H.O.R.S.E. Details & Results
- Entries: 120
- Prizes: $2,820,000
- Winner: Xixiang Luo ($725,796, 2nd bracelet this year)
| Place | Player | Home | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Xixiang Luo | China | $725,796 |
| 2 | Albert Daher | Lebanon | $483,866 |
| 3 | Michael Moncek | United States | $336,442 |
| 4 | Phil Ivey | United States | $239,850 |
| 5 | Ryan Miller | United States | $175,423 |
| 6 | Scott Seiver | United States | $131,719 |
| 7 | David Benyamine | France | $101,608 |
| 8 | Adam Friedman | United States | $80,585 |
| 9 | Yueqi Zhu | China | $65,761 |
Luo Takes Second Bracelet
While Luo describes himself primarily as a no-limit hold’em player, and most of his prior results indicate that, he said he was recently developing a love for other kinds of poker. Speaking through an interpreter to PokerNews after the win, Luo said “Ever since I found out about mixed games I have been super into them. I enjoy playing all the games, but Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better is my favorite.”
This was Luo’s second lifetime bracelet with both bits of jewelry coming this summer. He showed an inkling of his mixed-game prowess earlier in the series when he bagged his first bracelet in Event #41: $1,500 Mixed NLH / PLO Double Board Bomb Pot, but just before that, he previewed the big $25k win with a final table in the $1,500 HORSE for 5th place.
After a couple more cashes in PLO and Stud8 games, he picked up another final table (3rd place) in the $2,500 Mixed Big Bet game before finishing off his series with the big $25k title. He now has close to $1.5 million in earnings from WSOP events alone, with more than $4.25 million in total live poker earnings.
Seiver and Ivey Close to More Hardware
summer in the $25k HORSE with 4th place.
Any $25k game at the WSOP is going to come with a pretty stacked field, and the $25k HORSE was no exception. Phil Hellmuth, Eric Wasserson, Paul Volpe, Kane Kalas, Ali Eslami, Jason Mercier, and Matt Glantz were all among the players to make it through the field into the money, while Dan “Jungleman” Cates, Chris Brewer, Yuval Bronshtein, Jared Bleznick, Shaun Deeb, Scott Bohlman, Chad Eveslege, Chris Vitch, Todd Brunson, and PoY contender Jeremy Ausmus were among the players who couldn’t quite find a payday in this one.
Two other players who not only found a payday, but found a way onto the final table were two of the greatest to ever play the game. Widely recognized as the game’s best for nearly a couple of decades, Phil Ivey was looking for his second bracelet of the summer after he became the first player on 11 bracelets since Phil Hellmuth cracked that number, breaking what was a 4-way tie with Erik Seidel, Johnny Chan, and Doyle Brunson all on 10 bracelets each.
Ivey wouldn’t be able to close this one out for #12 but his fourth-place finish added $239,850 to his astonishing lifetime total of more than $46 million.
epic three-bracelet summer was capped by 6th in
the $25k HORSE
Scott Seiver is also having a pretty stellar summer. Earlier in the series, he became just the sixth person in history to win three bracelets in a single summer.
What’s more, Seiver did the deed in three different poker variants, scoring one bracelet each from flop, draw, and stud format games. While Ted Forrest bagged flop and stud format bracelets in his three-bracelet 1993, Seiver looks to be the first player ever to do it in all three variants.
Unsurprisingly, that run put him in control of the Player of the Year race this year, but he wasn’t exactly comfortable in the lead. He had Jeremy Ausmus sniffing down his neck, a point he noted before the FT for his final 2024 bracelet.
While Seiver’s third put him in control, Ausmus was still on his heels, with players like Chance Kornuth and John Racener also waiting in the wings. While there are still a few points left to be awarded in this year’s race, it looks fairly clear at this point that Seiver will be the player to take it down in 2024 as he now has a healthy 600 point lead over current 2nd place Michael Rocco, and almost 800 ahead of Ausmus in third.
While he was no doubt looking to become the first player ever to win four bracelets in a summer, in the end his sixth place finish in this one, while Ausmus busted out of the money, was enough to give upcoming Hall of Fame qualifier what looks to be an unassailable lead going into the final day of the series.
2024 WSOP Player of the Year Standings to Start Final Day
| Place | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Scott Seiver | 4,403.85 |
| 2 | Michael Rocco | 3,803.67 |
| 3 | Jeremy Ausmus | 3,686.60 |
| 4 |  Xixiang Luo | 3,446.77 |
| 5 | Chance Kornuth | 3,374.00 |
| 6 | John Racener | 3,137.59 |
| 7 | Chris Hunichen | 3,083.57 |
| 8 |  Yuri Dzivielevski | 3,033.64 |
| 9 | Phil Ivey | 3,004.04 |
| 10 | David Prociak | 2,921.93 |
Seiver took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to express both frustration and gratitude, an emotional contradiction that should feel pretty familiar to most poker players, and reiterate his love of the game.
