Joseph Sanders Claims First Bracelet and $269,530 in $1.5k 6-Max PLO

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Jul 14, 2024 3 min read

After six hours of play of Day 3 at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas, Event 90: $1,500 6-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha of the 2024 World Series of Poker has come to a conclusion as Joseph Sanders has emerged victorious after defeating Anatoliy Zlotnikov in a brief heads-up battle.

Along with the first-place prize of $269,530, Sanders takes home his first WSOP gold bracelet.

Sanders is a Henderson local who plays mostly cash, but likes to hop into the Pot-Limit Omaha tournaments whenever he can. His previous best tournament cash was in 2021 when he took fifth place in the PGT $10,000 PLO for $50,400 and then he had a similar score in the 2021 WSOP in the $25,000 PLO later that year.

Event #90: $1,500 6-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha Final Table Results

Winner's Reaction.

“I was hopeful…” Sanders said when asked how he felt coming into Day 3 “…but ya know, I was trying to be realistic, every player was capable and good, but hey it worked out.”

He then reminisced on when he doubled heads-up against Zlotnikov to take the lead.
“Oh man, that was huge, I mean he got lucky on the turn but yeah that one felt really good… Once that happened I felt like it was my tournament to lose.”

Sanders said he plans on playing the larger buy-in version of this one, Event #97: $3,000 6-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha which starts on Monday, July 15.

“I doubt I’ll run as pure as I did in this one but I gotta give it a try, ya know.”

Speaking of running pure, Sanders did have to navigate a field of 1,306 players, including some of the best PLO players in the world over a course of three days, which is no easy task.

Day 3 Action

Today saw six players return to action at noon but the action started off relatively slow as the players were still fairly deep-stacked, with Long Tran as the chip leader with 100 big blinds. The first elimination of the day was an hour and a half into play when short-stacked Dustin Nelson got it all in on the flop against Alfred Karlsson with just a pair of fives, but Karlsson rivered a superior pair of tens to send him out in sixth place.

After that, the action REALLY slowed down as the next elimination wasn’t until Mike Leah dwindled down to around 13 big blinds when he got it all in preflop against Karlsson who held aces. The board ran out seven-high and Karlsson wound up making a wheel to send out Leah in fifth.

With Leah gone, the players seemed to get a lot more loose as the chips began to fly. The lead changed several times before they eventually accumulated in front of Zlotnikov, who at one point earlier in the day was down to 10 big blinds himself. He then went on a tear, first by eliminating Long Tran in fourth by hitting a full house, then quickly followed that up by sending out Karlsson in third with a rivered straight.

Heads Up Play

Zlotnikov then entered the heads-up battle against Sanders with over a 2:1 chip lead, but in one of the first few hands, Sanders scored a huge double when he rivered a full house after Zlotnikov had turned a straight. Sanders then took down another big pot after that when he check-raised the flop to force a fold from Zlotnikov in a big pot, putting him in a dominating chip position.

It wasn’t long before all of the chips were back into the middle once again, but this time it was Zlotnikov whose tournament life was on the line. They got it in on a flop of nine-nine-ten, and Zlotnikov held aces for top two pair, but Sanders held a nine for trips that held to send out Zlotnikov as the runner-up for $179,689. Sanders was then awarded the WSOP gold bracelet along with the grand prize of $269,530.

That’s it for the coverage on this event but be sure to keep a tab open on PokerNews for all of the remaining coverage during the 2024 WSOP.

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