Natural8's Thai Ha Wins $1,500 Short Deck WSOP Bracelet

We’re thrilled to announce that Thai Ha of Team Hot has won his first-ever bracelet in the $1,500 Short Deck event! This victory extends Thai Ha’s lead at the top of Vietnam’s all-time money list, as his $111,170 win moves him over the $2.5 million mark for tournament earnings. 

Short Deck Pro

Thai Ha is something of a Short Deck specialist, finishing runner-up in two other Short Deck bracelet events back in 2019. He finished second to Alex Epstein in the $10,000 Short Deck No Limit Hold’em event in June 2019, then followed that up a few months later by finishing second to Siamak Tooran in the €25,500 No Limit Short Deck Hold’em event at the WSOPE in October 2019.

In fact, six of Thai Ha’s seven $100K+ scores have all come in Short Deck tournaments, showing just how adept he is at the game. When asked about how he felt finally winning his first bracelet, Thai said, “It feels great. Short Deck is one of the games I play the most and I got second twice already so this time it definitely feels great not to get second again. I feel like Short Deck is my strongest game.”

Despite being such a strong Short Deck player, Thai still had work to do coming into the day, having started third in chips. However, a strong performance soon brought him heads-up with previous bracelet winner David Prociak. When asked about what it was like to face off against a previous bracelet winner, Thai said, “He's pretty good but I have a little bit more experience in Short Deck than him so I felt comfortable playing heads up. But he's good in every game and he's picking up short deck very fast. He wasn't an easy opponent.”

Winning Early

The $1,500 Short Deck event was scheduled to be played across three days, but the players were being eliminated at such breakneck speed that the tournament finished a whole day early! The player pool was reduced from 363 total entrants to the final nine on Day 1, meaning that only two players had to be eliminated before they reached the official final table.

However, Day 2 was much slower paced, as it took over seven hours to reduce the field from nine players to one. It was previous bracelet winner David Prociak who took the lead into Day 2 and extended his lead early by picking up a couple of pots in quick succession. However, Thai was also chipping up handily throughout the event, quickly rising to nearly 1.8 million after starting with 1.2 million.

After doubling up Exterkotter, losing AK to AA, he quickly won those chips right back, and eliminated Marcos Exterkotter in 8th place, making a straight against Marcos’ KK. This elimination meant that the players had reached the final table and had to redraw for seats.

Thai sat to the right of chip leader Prociak, which put him in a tough position. However, he managed to deal with the situation well and accumulate chips throughout the final table, eliminating 7th-place finisher Matan Gabay and 5th-place finisher Ryan Laplante.

After David eliminated the 4th and 3rd-place players, the two entered into heads-up play, with David having a substantial chip lead over Thai Ha. Thai didn’t let that phase him and eventually took the chip lead after flopping a straight. After winning that hand, Thai never looked back, and half an hour later he eliminated David in second place and claimed his first-ever WSOP bracelet.

We at Natural8 would like to say how proud we are of Thai Ha’s accomplishments at this year’s WSOP, and can’t wait to see what he’s going to do in the future!

Event #83 $15,00 Short Deck No Limit Hold’em Final Table Results

Who will be the next Team Hot member to win a bracelet at the WSOP? Can anyone bring another one home for the team before the end of the series? Let us know on social media and stay tuned for all the latest WSOP news and events.

Image Source: Pokernews.com