Third Time’s the Charm for Greg Mueller in 2019 WSOP

Canadian poker pro Greg Mueller strikes 2019 WSOP gold in $10k H.O.R.S.E. Championship event.

There’ must be something about the cool, crisp Canadian water that helps cultivate some of the world’s best poker players. Daniel Negreanu, Jonathan Duhamel, Sorel Mizzi, Kristen Bicknell – these are just some of the nation’s universally celebrated pros. Joining them is Greg Mueller, #26 on the country’s all time money list and the most recent recipient of WSOP gold.

It seem the old cliché “the third time’s the charm” applies even more so for Mueller. He’s now flaunting 3 WSOP bracelets on his mantle, this third being the sweetest of all, and it took exactly three cashes in the 2019 World Series of Poker to snag it. That’s a lot of lucky 3s!

Greg Mueller Strikes WSOP Gold in $10k H.O.R.S.E.

Greg Mueller, known to the online poker realm as ‘GregFBT‘, joined in a field of 172 entries in 2019 WSOP Event #29, the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship. After three days of grueling action, he returned on Day 4 to find his tournament life hanging by a thread.

With no kicker and no equity to fall back on, Mueller shoved everything in the middle on bottom pair, prayed for a miracle, and got it! His natural poker intel told him he was ahead, and that instinct proved to be right. His opponent was riding on nothing, giving Greg the double-up he needed to renew his vitality.

A few hours later, that same opponent – Dario Sammartino – would fall in the third, bringing up heads-up play between Mueller and Daniel Ospina. Greg was already well ahead of the Colombian poker pro, and it only took a single hand to finish him off. The variant was Stud Hi-Lo, and Mueller had him every step of the way. Not only did he have Ospina cornered in the final street, he obliterated him with a heart flush for the win.

Ospina made his way to the cashier to collect the runner-up prize of $262,882, while our Canadian favorite was celebrating with the rail on this, his third career WSOP bracelet win. He added $425,347 to his new career earnings, just shy of $3.4 million.

How did he get through it all? “A good attitude, a fortune of good luck, and good friends around made the difference,” he told reporters in a post-tournament interview.

3 WSOP Bracelets and Counting for Canadian Pro

Mueller’s been playing live tournament poker for more than 15 years now, starting out with a series of respectable cashes between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, California between 2003 and 2005. His first major cash came a year later at the World Poker Challenge in Reno, where a 4th place finish earned him $42k.

In 2007, he scooped $328k for finishing 2nd in the WSOP Mixed Limit NLH Championship. The following year, he fell just short of gold once more, finishing runner up in a $5k NLH Shootout for $298k. The money kept flowing in, but the bracelet was always just out of reach. That is, until 2009, when he finally overcame that ultimate hurdle.

Greg Mueller snagged his first WOSP bracelet in the 2009 WSOP Limit Hold’em Championship, wrangling in his largest live event cash to date of $460,841. Just 11 days later, he proved it was no fluke. Greg walked away with his second bracelet and another $195k payday for taking down a Limit Hold’em Shootout.

Year after year, he continued to see the fruits of his labor, but it was a long 10 year drought in the jewelry department coming into the 2019 WSOP. Congratulations to you, Greg Mueller, and your third bracelet. Well played!