Event 53 – the $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better competition is in this year’s World Series of Poker record books as a win for Ohio poker pro Joey Couden, who claimed his first winner’s bracelet and the main prize of $244,370 for the victory.
The win was the largest of Couden’s eight cashes at this year’s WSOP so far.
Many of the game’s big names were among the 935 starting entries, with several of them making the final table after four hours of action Thursday in the form of Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, Bruno Fitoussi and Eli Ezra.
When Eli Ezra was eliminated by Couden at third for $106,183, the final two players were given the option of an extra day’s play to complete the heads up, but chose to continue, with Couden initially holding a 3 to 1 chip lead over Fitoussi.
After being in low-stack danger country on at least two occasions, Fitoussi scored a couple of double ups which made his situation less perilous, but he still lagged behind Couden, and with just minutes left before the day’s play was wrapped up Couden was able to shut the door and send Fitoussi away with a second placing prize of $150,990.
Other final table cashes looked like this:
4 – Mike Matusow – $75,708
5 – Chris Conrad – $54,637
6 – Kim Kallman – $40,141
7 – Dustin Pattinson – $29,862
8 – Gregory Jamison – $22,541
9 – Daniel Negreanu – $17,268