Congratulations to Rami Boukai, Winner of Event No. 10, the $2,500 PLH/PLO event ($244,862)
It took less than four hours for the final 18 to be whittled down to nine, at which point Daniel Makowsky and Cornel Cimpan were battling for the chip lead. Within the next hour, the table's short stacks -- Sigi Stockinger and John Kabbaj -- were eliminated, followed shortly afterwards by Pawel Andrzejewski in seventh.
The final half-dozen battled gamely for the next couple of hours, with Cornel Cimpan overtaking the leaders and eventually building a stack of over a million chips before falling back in the pack. When Paul Parker was eliminated in sixth, the remaining five would compete for nearly four more hours before Makowsky finally was ousted after losing a hold'em race with A-J versus Najib Bennani's pocket eights.
Cimpan was eliminated a half-hour later in a PLO hand when his single-suited aces got cracked by Bennani's rivered straight. Ben Grundy was the short stack for most of three-handed play, finally falling to Bennani in another PLO hand in which aces couldn't hold up.
When heads-up play began, Boukai held only a slight chip advantage over Bennani. It had been a remarkable comeback for Bennani, who at one point when five-handed had been down to just 50,000. Soon after heads up started, Boukai immediately began increasing his lead via aggressive play. The end finally came in the 29th level of play in a hold'em hand when Bennani, down to less than 800,000 chips versus Boukai's 2.6 million, decided to race with jack-queen versus Boukai's pocket nines. A queen flopped, but a nine came on the turn, and Boukai's set gave him the bracelet.
The PLO/PLH event is a supreme test of players' abilities not just to excel in two different poker games, but to demonstrate their postflop skills as well. Those lasting to our final table were not necessarily the most familiar names listed among those who entered this "name pro"-heavy event. But all ably demonstrated their significant poker skills in Event No. 10. Congratulations to all who went deep, and especially to Rami Boukai, winner of the gold bracelet.
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