Place – Name – Hometown 19 Mark Gaudino (Davie, FL) 20 Jose Chapui (Pembroke Pines, FL) 21 Steven Lipkins (Boca Raton, FL) 22 Yigal Hen (Cooper City, FL) 23 Abbey Daniels (Coral Springs, FL) 24 David Solomon (Hollywood, FL) 25 Ignat Slepokourov (Royal Palm Beach, FL) 26 Daniel Piela (Wheaton, IL) 27 John Mayers (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)
$3,500 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship Event
Blinds 250k/500k/50k ante
On the seventh hand of heads up play, Eric Afriat calls the 10.8 million (22 bb) all-in bet of Vinny Pahuja.
Afriat: Pahuja:
Flop: (Afriat still leads)
Turn: (no change)
River:
Afriat wins the coin flip with two pairs, 8s and 5s to take the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship and the first place prize of nearly $1.1 million.
“Everything was just magical,” said Afriat who is enjoying the win with a strong Canadian rail made up of family and friends. “You can’t fight faith and it was my time.”
The 44 year-old businessman wins $1,081,184, taking Afriat’s career recorded live tournament earnings past $1.5 million.
“I always envisioned it, always felt I was going to win,” he says, “but the fact, after everything is over, it just sunk in that it’s ridiculous what I just accomplished.”
$3,500 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship Event
Blinds 250k/500k/50k ante
Mukul Pahuja loses a coin flip to Eric Afriat and finish runner-up in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship.
Pahuja’s doesn’t improve against Afriat’s 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.”
$200 Buy-in No Limit Hold’em ($50K Guaranteed) Blind Level 17: 2500/5K/ 500 ante Total entries: 362 Places Paid: 36 Players left: 31 Average Stack: 117K (23bbs)
The blinds have just been increased to 2500/5k with a 500 ante. We’ll be at this level for the next 30 minutes, then the players will take a 10 min break.