David Benyamine wins 2008 WSOP Event 37

David Benyamine won the first WSOP bracelet of his career last night when he took down the $10K buy-in Omaha Hi/Lo Championship – Event #37. He had come close several other times this Series as this was his third final table and he also had a tenth place finish a night earlier. When he came into last nights event he was arguably the best player in poker to have never won a bracelet, while getting that monkey off his back he picked up $535,687 top place prize money brining his total 2008 WSOP winnings to $941,652.

Final table coverage:

After four hours of day three play, the field was narrowed from the eighteen remaining players down to the official final table of nine. It was David Benyamine with a massive lead up against one of the tougher final tables of the Series so far, as you can see by their accomplishments listed below with the final table starting chip counts.

David Benyamine - 1,200,000 Chips - (2X WPT Champion, 3rd final table this YEAR)
David Chiu - 730,000 Chips - (4 time WSOP bracelet winner)
Toto Leonidas - 720,000 Chips - (9 WSOP final tables 1 bracelet)
Jason Gray - 590,000 Chips - (4 WSOP final tables 0 bracelets)
Greg Jamison - 450,000 Chips - (19 WSOP Cashes, 2nd final table this YEAR)
Hieu ‘Tony’ Ma - 310,000 Chips - (7 WSOP final tables 2 bracelet)
Eugene Katchalov - 300,000 Chips - (one time WPT Champion)
Mike Matusow - 195,000 Chips - (3 time WSOP bracelet winner)
Ram Vaswani - 175,000 Chips - (7 WSOP final tables 1 bracelet)

The two short stacks Mike Matusow and Ram Vaswani did not stay short stacked for long, early on the final table Matusow quadrupled up and soon later find himself with 600K chips, and Ram Vaswani managed to catch a much needed triple up as well. Between these two players winning massive pots we saw Hieu ‘Tony’ Ma become the nights first casualty when on a board of 3h 7h Th 4h he fired out a bet holding 3s 4c 5h 8h and then called when Toto Leonidas moved in with 8d 9h 2h As. When an ace fell on the river Ma yelled YES!, thinking he had caught the low, but after some confusion he realized he had been eliminated as Leonidas scooped the pot.

It took quite some time for the final table to get narrowed any further, but once another player dropped two others quickly followed. The first of these was David Chiu who pushed all in 3554 and lost to Jamison’s KKAT when the board ran J-7-10-8-Q. Next was Ram Vaswani who pushed with QQ66 and fell to Jamison’s A278 when the board ran A-8-2-7-4-5. These two were followed to the rail Eugene Katchalov who collected $110,450 for his sixth place finish after his 6789 fell to Gray’s A23J on a board of 6-4-3-Q-J.

Mike Matusow’s hopes at earning his second bracelet of this Series came to an end when he got his money all in with As Qh 6d 3s on a flop of Kc Ad 8c and was behind to Leonidas Ah Ks 7c 6h, the turn and river came Jc 8d and Matusow was to the rail in fifth place collecting $138,062. Toto Leonidas then finished in 4th Place worth $171,197 when he was all in blind from the big blind against two players. When he finally turned up his hand it was decent Ah 2c 5h Js unfortunately for him the board had not obliged as it ran Qc 6c Kc Tc 9d and David Benyamine took the pot with a flush.

Three handed play did not last long and it ended with Jason Gray getting his money all in with a nut flush draw and backdoor low draw against Benyamines middle pair with open ended straight draw. The turn and river provided no help and Jason Gray collected $209,855 for his third place finish.

When heads up play began the chip counts were David Benyamine: 3,665,000, Greg Jamison: 1,035,000 and Gray never got a chance to draw any closer. After getting down to 160K chips Gray doubled up twice, but his third time all in Benyamine put him away when the players had

Jamison Qh Kh 6d 2s
Benyamine Tc Th Qc 3h

The flop came 9s Js Td giving Jamison the nuts but he was eliminated as the runner up receiving $331,350 when a turned jack gave Benyamine a full house. Poker-Prop offers a huge congratulations to Full Tilt Poker pro David Benyamine on winning his first career bracelet and the $535,687 top place prize money.