Congratulations To John Kabbaj, Event #45 Champion ($633,335)
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Down to the last 14 players to start the day, a final table was reached relatively quickly in the second level of play when Mohsin Charania was eliminated in 10th place.
The final table would turn out to be an exercise in small-ball poker, a thing you do not usually see in Pot Limit Hold'em. After days of pot-sized raises and reraises, players seemed less willing to commit themselves early in a hand. The slow play led to an interesting situation - with seven players left at the table, the average chip stack was just 14 big blinds.
With the wealth spread so thin, players were almost forced to commit themselves in any hand they decided to play for a raise. Within an hour the tournament lost four players; Eugene Todd (7th), Jason Lester (6th), J.C. Alvarado (5th) and Davidi Kitai (4th).
Another hour would pass before recent braclet winner, Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin, would be sent to the rail. He was first crippled when Kirill Gerasimov flopped two pair with
against his 
. Left with only 420,000 he was all in (and very shortly after all out) on the next hand.Going into the heads up match, Kirill Gerasimov had an almost 2-1 chip lead over John Kabbaj. It took Kabbaj only nine hands to find a way to double up, risking all his chips on a coin flip with
against Gerasimov's pocket threes. Kabbaj flopped the boat and never looked back.In the second to last hand, Kabbaj used a powerful reraise to muscle Gerasimov out of a pot (after a seven-plus minute tank). It appeared Gerasimov should have gone with the hand, as he ran into the cooler of all coolers on the final hand: aces vs. kings.
Kabbaj was on the winning end, taking home the $633,335 first-place prize and having the privilege of having his picture taken next to his first WSOP bracelet alongside pocket aces.
Congratulations to John Kabbaj, Champion of Event #45!