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John Monnette earns 4th WSOP bracelet, denying Nate Silver

John Monnette climbed another rung on the all-time World Series of Poker leaderboard, earning his fourth career bracelet early Sunday at the Rio.

Monnette won the $10,000 buy-in Limit Hold’em Championship, defeating a field of 92 entries to take home $245,680. He won heads-up against Nate Silver, the political polling analyst who founded the website FiveThirtyEight.com. Silver earned $151,842.

Only 26 players have claimed more bracelets than Monnette, who previously won the $2,500 Eight-game Mix in 2011, the $5,000 Seven-card Stud in 2012 and the $10,000 No-limit 2-7 Lowball Championship in 2017. (The WSOP awards trophy bracelets for tournament victories.)

“The first (bracelet) is always the most special, but this is awesome,” Monnette told PokerNews. “I had a couple of bad years where I did nothing, so to finally get back and do something is great.”

Monnette has more than $2.8 million in career tournament earnings, according to the Hendon Mob Poker Database.

Silver, a former poker pro, was seeking his first WSOP bracelet. He had three WSOP cashes for $9,310 coming into the event.

“So … ended up in 2nd place, which somehow feels worse than 3rd place, but *does* pay $152,000,” Silver said on Twitter. “Congrats to my opponent John Monnette, who played a great heads-up match and really earned the bracelet.”

Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.

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