WSOP Event #10: Rami Boukai Wins His First Bracelet
It took three days of struggle through a tough field of 435 players for Rami Boukai to claim his first WSOP bracelet. He concluded that the Mixed HA event favoured the Omaha players, such as himself.
A total of 435 players entered the $2,500 Pot Limit Hold'em / Pot LimitOmaha event and after the last cards had been dealt, Rami Boukai stood
victoriously with his first WSOP bracelet and a nice prize of $244,862.
Day
3 of the Mixed HA event featured 18 players taking their seats. Amit
Makhija, Jamie Rosen and Tony Cousineau were all seen packing their
bags before the final table had been reached. Gary Do had the
"privilege" of being the final table bubble boy, finishing in 10th
place.
Sigi Stockinger was the first to leave the final table,
ending his great run in 9th place during a round of Omaha. It turned
out that Omaha would also claim the two following victims, John Kabbaj
and Pawel Andrzejewski.
The first elimination in the round of Hold'em sent Paul Parker out. His
last hand featured him going all-in with A-6 and bumping into Rami
Boukai's A-K. The board brought blanks and Parker was sent to the rail.
 |
| Photo credit: IMPDI for 2009 WSOP |
Daniel Makowsky started the final table second in chips, but he was
busted in 5th place. In his last hand of the tournament, Makowsky raced
with 
against Najib Bennani's pocket eights. The board came 
and Bennani came on top of this clash at the cost of Makowsky's entire stack.
Cornel Cimpan was the next to find himself up against Bennani with the
same result - packing his bags. The game was Omaha, Bennani called from
the small blind, Cimpan raised pot from the big blind and Bennani
called. The flop came 
, Bennani bet and Cimpan called all-in. Bennani revealed 
while Cimpan turned over 
. With the 
coming on the turn, Cimpan's final table appearance as over.
Bennani continued to do all the work at the final table and knocked out Ben Grundy. Omaha was again the location of another elimination. Bennani raised to 125,000, Grundy made it 425,000, which left him with just 40,000 behind, Bennai raised and Grundy put in his last chips.
Grundy showed 
while Bennani turned over 
. The flop came 
and it was looking good for Grundy, but then the turn came and the on the river gave Bennai two pair and Grundy was sent to the rail in 3rd place.
The heads-up play featured Najib Bennani holding a 1.75 million to 1.65
million chip lead over Rami Boukai. It didn't take long for the winner
to be determined, as the final hand approached quickly. Bennani started
the action with a pot-sized raise, Boukai raised it just enough to have
Bennani all-in and Bennani made the call.
Bennani turned over 
while Boukai showed 
. The flop came to give the lead to Bennani, but the situation was quickly changed when the turn brought 
. The river came and Boukai won $244,862 along with a WSOP bracelet. Boukai commented:
"I just wanted to win. I won most of the hands heads-up but I was
running really well, I was hitting some rivers. he was actually
dodging, folding on the river a lot when I had a hand. He played as
well as he could but I ran pretty good."
Boukai also commented how he preferred the Omaha action throughout the
tournament and that there were only a few solid PLO players until the
final table:
"I took pee breaks during the Hold'em half the time because the
Omaha play was a lot better for me. There was a lot of tournament
players or a lot of No Limit (Hold'em) players. The final table,
probably seven of the nine are cash game Omaha players. The tournament
definitely favoured the Omaha players."
Here are the final table results:
| World Series Of Poker Event #10 Results |
||
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | Rami Boukai | $244,862 |
| 2nd | Najib Bennani | $151,335 |
| 3rd | Ben Grundy | $99,574 |
| 4th | Cornel Cimpan | $69,546 |
| 5th | Daniel Makowsky | $51,313 |
| 6th | Paul Parker | $39,904 |
| 7th | Pawel Andrzejewski | $32,653 |
| 8th | John Kabbaj | $28,006 |
| 9th | Sigi Stockinger | $25,151 |
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