Championship 2nd Place – Mukul Pahuja ($691,965)

$3,500 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship Event

Blinds 250k/500k/50k ante

Mukul Pahuja (Coconut Creek, FL)  $691,965
Mukul Pahuja (Coconut Creek, FL)
$691,965

Mukul Pahuja loses a coin flip to Eric Afriat and finish runner-up in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship.

Pahuja’s Kh9s doesn’t improve against Afriat’s 8d8h and settles for second place and $691,965.

“It’s still a celebration, it’s something to be really happy about and the grind continues and I’m just going to be hungrier the next time and try to get back here again.”

Pahjua says a key hand came when he moved all in on the turn against James Mackey and lost more than 8 million chips drawing dead.  Mackey flopped trip 5s against Pahjua’s AQ and was cut down to 10 million.

“I thought he might have a draw and I just had the best hand,” says Pahuja. “A bluff, weird hand gone wrong.”

This was Pahuja’s third WPT final table of the season and gives him a commanding leading in the tour’s Player of the Year points lead.  He’s a 28-year-old poker pro with a finance degree from Penn State University.

Pahuja now has nearly $3 million in career recorded live tournament earnings and is upbeat despite the disappointing finish.

“I love this casino, I’m always going to be here for whatever’s going on, the big stuff and it’s really awesome to be just twenty minutes away from here.”