Ryan Bambrick Wins Second, Denies Negreanu WSOP Bracelet No. 8

A giant, standing room only crowd gathered in the Horseshoe Grand Ballroom on Tuesday looking to witness Daniel Negreanu make history. Another 30,000-plus watched along on the PokerGO YouTube stream of the action.

Negreanu got heads-up for the 2025 World Series of Poker $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo championship with a chance at his eighth WSOP gold bracelet. But it was not meant to be on this day.

Instead, it was Ryan Bambrick putting on an impressive performance on his way to the title and his second career WSOP bracelet. Before this tournament, Bambrick’s second-largest live cash, beyond his previous 2018 WSOP $1,500 pot-limit Omaha win, was $13,500. He’d never so much as cashed a $10,000 buy-in tournament, and yet Bambrick walked away with this victory, worth $470,437.

For his efforts in this tournament, Bambrick also earned 900 Card Player Player of the Year points. His victory was worth 470 PokerGO Tour points in the PGT season-long standings as well. Negreanu’s second-place finish was worth 314 PGT points, pushing him all the way up to second in the overall standings.

Bambrick, who in 2018 stepped away from a full-time career as a day trader to play a full WSOP schedule, had taken a long hiatus from poker prior to this summer. He took a break from trading cryptocurrency to step into the arena and battle with some true poker greats.

“I haven’t played poker in a year, basically, at all; I played like one tournament in the last year,” said Bambrick. “I used to play professionally for a bit, and I didn’t love it professionally, just as a hobby. I’m probably gonna play this full WSOP, though.”

Negreanu Denied Eighth WSOP Bracelet

For Negreanu, it was ultimately his 11th career runner-up finish in a WSOP bracelet event. This was also Negreanu’s third career runner-up finish in an Omaha eight-or-better event at the WSOP, with no wins. Negreanu did increase his lead on the WSOP’s all-time money list over Antonio Esfandiari, adding $313,615 to his total with this second-place showing.

At the 2024 WSOP, Negreanu broke a winless streak of over a decade when he won his seventh career bracelet in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.

A Dominant Performance for Bambrick

Five players returned for the final day of the $10,000 Omaha eight-or-better championship, but the stack distribution and the 90-minute levels kept eliminations at bay for over two hours.

Negreanu and Bambrick started day 3 of the tournament essentially tied for second behind chip leader Viktor Blom. Known as ‘Isildur1’ from his legendary online poker exploits, Blom was in position for a long-sought-after first WSOP win.

Bambrick and Blom exchanged the chip lead, but Bambrick crested over 4 million and eventually took over the chip lead for good.

Hunter McClelland eventually settled into the short stack position, and Negreanu finished him off with a 1-2 punch. A full house, nines-over-jacks, gave Negreanu the last of McClelland’s chips and knocked him out in fifth.

.@RealKidPoker makes a full house and eliminates Hunter McClelland.

Watch Negreanu’s quest for @WSOP bracelet No. 8 right now on https://t.co/2RQh5ROjQG. pic.twitter.com/ck0dNA7Ab9

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) June 4, 2025

By that point, Blom’s fortunes had turned sour in a major way. As Bambrick cleared 5 million, 6 million and then 7 million in short order, Blom held on with his last few chips. A runner-runner low against Negreanu saved Blom for a moment, but Bambrick got Blom in the end. Holding A♦ K♥ 8♣ 2♥, Bambrick flopped a flush draw and a nut low draw on a Q♣ 7♥ 4♥ board against Blom’s pair of queens, open-ended straight draw and lesser low draw with A♣ Q♥ 6♣ 5♠.

Blom’s queens held on the 10♦ turn, but the 9♥ completed Bambrick’s flush, and Blom was out in fourth.

Bambrick breached 10 million, facing down two opponents with a combined 2,775,000 in chips. Negreanu went on his most hopeful run of the tournament to this point, though, eclipsing 4.2 million when he flopped a set and rivered quad nines to eliminate Ofir Mor in third.

Heads Up With Negreanu

The lead for Bambrick was just over 2-to-1 when heads-up play started, but Bambrick won the first pot from Negreanu and kept the pressure on. Bambrick rivered an ace-high flush to put Negreanu on the brink with just five big bets, but Negreanu had one more push left in him.

A relentless Bambrick chipped Negreanu down once more, until Negreanu had just three big bets left in his stack. The chips got in on a J♠ 9♦ 5♥ J♥ board with no low in play. Bambrick had the nut full house with J♣ 9♠ 8♥ 2♦ and Negreanu needed one of the three remaining kings in the deck to make a bigger full house with K♥ J♦ 3♠ 2♠.

Ryan Bambrick wins his second @WSOP gold bracelet and denies @RealKidPoker his eighth in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Championship. Bambrick wins $470,437.

Stream the WSOP all summer long on https://t.co/2RQh5ROjQG. pic.twitter.com/G5pSW3nAqx

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) June 4, 2025

It was not to be, as the A♠ became the final river card of the tournament.

Despite the big crowd and the big names, Bambrick rarely faltered on his way to the win.

“It was obviously pretty cool playing against Negreanu and Isildur at the final table,” said Bambrick. “You really can’t ask for better opponents. It wasn’t intimidating or anything like that, though, it was just normal poker.”

Final Table Results

Photo credit: PokerGO / Enrique Malfavon.