Nitsche and Schulman cap off prelim events with bracelet wins

Nick Schulman earned his second career WSOP bracelet and German poker pro Dominik Nitsche picked-up his first as the preliminary events at the 2012 World Series of Poker came to a close this weekend. Schulman’s win came in the $10k 2-7 No Limit Lowball tournament, while Nitsche won the final $1,000 No Limit Holdem event of the 2012 WSOP.

For Nick Schulman it’s been a bumpy ride in the poker world. Schulman first rose to prominence in the middle of the poker boom, after winning the World Poker Tour World Poker Finals at Foxwoods back in 2005, and nearly winning a second WPT title in 2007 when he finished second in the same event. But since then Schulman has struggled on the tournament trail, even though he picked-up his first WSOP in 2009, with his struggles even making it to TV on the MTV True Life series.

Despite his ups and downs Schulman’s poker game has always been considered top-level, always a threat to make a deep run or win any event he entered. Nick even managed to secure enough backing to play in the $1,000,000 buy-in Big One for One Drop event held at this WSOP, although he failed to cash in the tournament, missing out on a potential $18 million windfall that ended up going to Antonio Esfandiari.

Schulman did keep grinding though, and his hard work was paid off when he won his second career WSOP bracelet, beating a tough field of some of the best poker players in the world. A look at the final table will tell you just how tough this tournament was:

1. Nick Schulman (New York, NY), $294,321
2. Mike Wattel (Chandler, AZ), $181,886
3. George Danzer (Munich, Germany), $115,295
4. Benjamin Parker (Apex, NC), $78,088
5. Ashton Griffin (Lake Worth, FL), $55,482
6. John Juanda (Las Vegas, NV), $41,270
7. Bob Bright (Las Vegas, NV), $32,080
8. Ali Eslami (Van Nuys, CA), $26.004

Dominik Nitscheon the other hand is an up and coming star on the European poker scene (basically in the same position Nick Schulman was in in 2005), and after winning the final $1k NLHE event of the 2012 WSOP he now has a WSOP bracelet to go along with his Latin American Poker Tour victory from 2009.

Here is a look at the final table payouts from event #59:

1. Dominik Nitsche (Germany), $654,797
2. Jonathan Hilton (Chattanooga, TN), $405,156
3. Alex Cordero (Victoria, British Columbia), $291,725
4. Sebastien Comel (St. Praire du Mont, France), $215,592
5. Randolph Lanosga (South Fork, CO), $160,665
6. Franklin Johnson (Bonanza, OR), $120,748
7. Martin Vallo (Copenhagen, Denmark), $91,476
8. Jonathan Miller (Lexington, KY), $69,896
9. Daniel Eichhorn (Henderson, NV), $53,846