Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi Wins WSOPE Spilt Hold'em Event
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Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi earned his second World Series of Poker gold bracelet on Saturday, taking first place in the €10,000 Split Format No-Limit Hold’em Tournament at the WSOP Europe. This event, which tested players in a variety of table formats, was the 5th event of this year’s WSOP Europe series.
This four-day tournament had one of the more unique formats seen on the poker tour. On the first day, the 125 players competed in the standard, nine-handed format seen in tournaments around the world. One the second day, players played six-handed – the staple “shorthanded” format. Finally, the last two days were played in a heads-up format among the remaining players.
Of course, while none of these formats are unusual on their own, the mixture of all three made for some interesting play – especially in heads up play, where unlike most heads-up tournaments, the players rarely had the same number of chips at the start of each match.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in the finals, when Mizrachi had to take on Shawn Buchanan. Mizrachi entered the final match with a 2-1 chip lead, and never looked back, continuing to press his advantage over the two hour match.
In the final hand, though, Mizrachi was more lucky than good. Mizrachi moved all in with AT offsuit, only to be called by Buchanan’s AJ offsuit. However, the Grinder hit a ten on the flop, and that was enough to earn the Grinder his title.
Mizrachi earned €336,008 for first place, bringing him to over $11.5 million in tournament winnings in his illustrious career. Mizrachi has now won twice in the last two years in WSOP events; he also holds two World Poker Tour titles, and is 7th all-time on the tournament money list.
Several other top players also posted excellent results in the tournament. Along with Buchanan, who won €207,624 for his second-place finish, there were cashes by Noah Schwartz (4th), Dan Fleyshman (5th), Brian Hastings (8th), Jason Mercier (9th) and Erik Seidel (12th).