Persistence Brings David Shmuel His First WSOP Bracelet

After four long days of poker at Horseshoe Las Vegas, we finally have the first open event World Series of Poker bracelet winner of 2025. While all of the big no-limit and pot-limit events play out their final tables over the weekend, the $1,500 Omaha eight-or-better event saw Miami, Florida’s David Shmuel crowned champion.

Shmuel outlasted a field of 910 to win a first-place prize of $205,333, his first WSOP gold bracelet and 912 Card Player Player of the Year points.

Despite over $1.1 million in lifetime live tournament prizes, this is Shmuel’s career-best result and the third six-figure cash of his career. In his 174th career cash, dating back to 2011 in the Card Player database, Shmuel broke through.

“Omaha hi-lo is my favorite game,” Shmuel told PokerNews. “It’s the game I actually started playing back in 1994. It’s a more relaxing game than hold’em and more fun to play. Two cards can get a little boring. Don’t get me wrong, hold’em is a great game, but I think mixed games are more fun.”

It wasn’t quite a wire-to-wire win for Shmuel. After bagging the chip lead at the end of day 1, Shmuel fell all the way back to second in the chip counts to close day 2 with 16 players left.

Shmuel began the final table in the middle of the pack and made his way back to the top when he quartered then-chip leader Melvin McCraney with an ace-high diamond flush and a nut-low to McCraney’s naked nut low.

McCraney would ultimately tumble out in seventh place. That left a final six with three players who had come close to previous WSOP glory. Joe Ford, Darren Taylor, and Ilia Krupin had each made a prior WSOP final table, with Krupin making this his third such appearance on Friday. Ford made the final table of this exact $1,500 Omaha eight-or-better event back in 2013, finishing fourth.

Shmuel took over the chip lead five-handed and never relinquished it, though he did so without recording a single final table knockout until taking out Darren Taylor in third place.

After taking a commanding lead with a straight-over-straight hand, Shmuel secured the WSOP title with a flashy one-way hand. A♥ A♠ K♠ K♦ is a hand more suited to pot-limit Omaha, but it certainly got the job done for Shmuel on this night. Ford made his last stand with Q♠ 8♥ 4♠ 2♠ but couldn’t get any help from the board as it ran out 9♣ 9♠ 4♦ J♣ 2♦.

Looking Ahead

It’ll be quite some time before there’s a day without a WSOP bracelet winner crowned again. Three separate events crown winners on Saturday: $5,000 no-limit hold’em and $5,000 pot-limit Omaha events, and  $1,500 seven card stud.

The fifth and final starting session of the $1,000 Mystery Millions begins Saturday morning. The $25,000 heads-up no-limit hold’em championship and $1,500 Dealers Choice will play the second of three scheduled days. And the only new event kicking off on Saturday is the first $10,000 championship event of the 2025 WSOP, in Omaha eight-or-better.

Final Table Results

Photo credit: WSOP/Austin Currington.