2010 WSOP PPC
Introduction
You know I’ve never really been much of a one for acronyms but – 2010 WSOP PPC is the only way to put the 2010 World Series of Poker Players Championship as a blog headline. Begun on Friday 28th May, this $50,000 buy-in championship got to its final day on Tuesday June 1st. As you’d expect of a players championship all the top professionals from all over the globe were there, not to mention a few ‘chancers’ who could raise the buy-in.
The final table
So, who was at the final table? Whilst they’re all well known poker player names there’s no room this year for the likes of Daniel Negreanu or Phil Ivey, nor even last year’s overall WSOP champion Joe Cada. In the lead at the beginning of the final poker table was Robert Mizrachi, seated at number 8, with 3,125,000 chips; whilst second placed David Baker was on seat number 1 with just a few chips less at 3,095,000. Four other American poker players were also in the frame; John Juanda (2,620,000) Daniel Alaei (1,705,000), David Oppenheim (last placed and seated 7 on 460,000 chips) and Robert’s younger brother Michael on a respectable 2,175,000 chips. The final pair was Mikael Thuritz from Sweden (2,300,000) and Vladimir Schmelev from Russia (1,925,000). Nick Schulman was the unlucky one having the heartbreak of going out of the tournament 9th overall, but he did manage to take away a nice check for $152,739.
The winner is …
Michael Mizarchi- aka The Grinder - on his way to winning the 2010 WSOP PPC.
Shortly before 1am PST the final poker table was reduced to the last pair when David Oppenheim, the short-stack going into the final day, holding a pair of eights had lost out to Michael Mizrachi’s pair of Queens. This left Vladimir Schmelev and the younger Mizarchi brother to slog it out for what is undoubtedly one of the most prized of the WSOP bracelets. With the chip counts having remained pretty even for a couple of hours suddenly in the half hour after 3am Michael strode ahead, taking a 10 million chip lead out of the 17+ million on the table. Sure enough, just before 4am it was all over after Vladimir tried a few all-in moves – he called holding Qd and 8h. The flop gave 9h, 6h and 4c; but despite a 4d coming on the river the 5h that fell before it on the turn was the killer blow – as Mizrachi was already holding Qs and 5c. So, along with a WSOP winners bracelet Michael Mizarchi picks up a winners check for $1,559,046.