Best WSOP Moments: The Hevad Khan Show

Plenty of noteworthy things happened at the 2007 WSOP Main Event, but just one player was responsible for a change to the celebration rule: Hevad Khan. Khan's epic final table run is one of the most memorable WSOP moments in recent years.

Hevad Khan

The most significant highlight of the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event was unknown amateur Jerry Yang winning the world championship. It's also memorable that legendary poker pro Scotty Nguyen made an impressive run and finished in 11th place himself.

There was one man, however, who stole the spotlight for much of the event: Hevad Khan. The New Yorker didn't hold in any of his emotions - after nearly every pot he won he put his chair in the air and pumped his fists.

Although Hevad drew the attention of the poker world mostly for his antics, his amazing performance landed him a seat at the final table.

Bulldozer Hevad ran over his opponents

As "RaiNKhAN" at PokerStars Khan had some great success online - sometimes he played 26 sit & go's simultaneously, and he was a big winner.

On the way to his deep finish, the 27-year-old had to get lucky. In one hand, Rami Boukai held A-A and all the chips went in preflop while Khan was holding only Q-Q. The board was good for the online pro, giving him two queens on the flop - Quads for Hevad.

After that suckout, Hevad reached the final table and played with the likes of Alexander Kravchenko, Phillip Hilm and Jon Kalmar. The Hevad Khan show soon reached a conclusion when the pro busted in sixth place for $956,243.

In his last hand he played A-Qs against the J-J of Jerry Yang...

Where is he today?

After the 2007 WSOP Hevad Khan was pretty successful at tournaments: In 2008 he won $1.2 million in live events, and in 2009 he earned $245,180. Since then, he hasn't cashed in live events in 2010, 2011 or 2012, although he hasn't played in many events.

In 2010 Hevad's sponsorship deal with PokerStars ran out, and he has hardly been seen since. The internet world talked about him on poker forums, but there is hardly any available information. He hasn't posted on his Twitter account since 2010.

Here you can watch one of his most recent interviews:

In May of 2012 Hevad's name received some new attention: The World Series of Poker announced a change to the celebration rule which was originally instituted in response to Hevad's extreme celebrations.

Jack Effel, tournament director of WSOP, said "We feel that we were a little extreme with what happened around Hevad Khan. We think it should be OK to celebrate a little bit, and so we have rewritten the rule."

But be careful - this is not a free ticket for all junior Hevads. Effel continued, "We want to encourage the players to enjoy their success as long as they don't go crazy and disrupt the tournament or other players."

Now that he can celebrate again, we're hoping that Hevad Khan will participate at this year's WSOP. The poker world would be thrilled to see him return, but perhaps those at his tables would disagree...

Hevad 'BULLDOZER' Khan

by Tobias tooobi123 Frey