Matt “mattg1983” Graham is quickly earning legendary status at the World Series of Poker. Less than a year after overcoming an 8-1 chip deficit heads up to win his first gold bracelet, Graham prevailed over a 9-1 disadvantage to Vitaly Lunkin to win the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship Event (#40) early Tuesday morning.
Graham bested a final table that included four other bracelet winners – Lunkin, Barry Greenstein, Josh Arieh and Richard Austin – to take home $679,402 for first place. With the victory he became the 128th player in history to earn in excess of $1 million in World Series of Poker winnings.
It was a long day for everyone involved with Event #40. The day began at 1:00 p.m. Vegas time with 24 players and the final nine didn’t convene until after 7:00 p.m. It then took three hours to lose the first player, and it so happened to be the biggest name at the table: Barry Greenstein got all of his chips in with a wrap and flush draws against Lunkin’s pair of aces and straight draw. Greenstein was favored to win the pot but the turn and river didn’t give him any help and he was eliminated in ninth place. As is his custom, Greenstein signed a copy of his book Ace on the River and handed it to Lunkin on his way out.
Lunkin then took out a short-stacked Richard Austin in eighth place moments later. Austin, who won the $5K PLO Event less than a week ago, moved all in on the flop with bottom pair and a wrap draw against Lunkin’s overpair and was unable hit one of his outs. Austin collected $88,681 for eighth place.
Two-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Josh Arieh was taken down in seventh. Arieh was in good shape pre-flop with single-suited aces against Ferit Gabriellson’s single-suited kings (both had clubs) but Gabriellson made quads on the river to send Arieh to the rail. He was followed by Stefan Mattson in sixth place.
Graham then got involved by eliminating the next three players. He got his chips in behind on the flop against Gabriellson but turned a set of jacks to win the pot and remove Gabriellson from the table in fifth place. The next to go was Robin Keston. Graham raised pre-flop and Keston moved all in over the top. Graham called and made a pair of aces on the turn to send Keston on his way.
The 26-year-old Graham got the best of Van Marcus only minutes later. The two players had a raising war pre-flop that resulted in all of the chips going in. Graham was relieved to see that his single-suited aces were well in front of Marcus’ queens and the board ran true for Graham, leaving just two players remaining.
The epic heads-up match began with Graham leading Lunkin by a slight margin. But Vitaly chipped away at Graham, winning pot after pot to take a 9-1 edge over the online pro. Graham used the word “dejected” to describe how he felt at the time, but that feeling didn’t last long.
Graham promptly doubled up three times, suddenly finding himself with the chip lead, and the final hand played out like he had hoped. Both players limped to see a 10-high flop with two diamonds. Lunkin bet 120,000, Graham check-raised to 600,000 and Lunkin called. A black nine fell on the turn and Graham bet 1.1 million. Lunkin moved all in and Graham wasted no time before calling:
Graham: [tc][th][6c][5h]
Lunkin: [kd][js][9d][2d]
Graham avoided Lunkin’s straight and flush draws to win the final pot with a set of tens and capture his second WSOP bracelet. His first came last year in a $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout in which he took home $278,180. According to Graham, this one was sweeter: “I think I feel better about this. I am more excited about this one. It’s really weird. But just the fact that this was a $10,000 buy-in PLO and triple the prize money. This was more exciting.” Graham recently signed as an Ultimate Bet pro, and the site is celebrating its first 2009 bracelet thanks to him.
Here are the final results from the $10,000 PLO World Championship:
1. Matt Graham – $679,379
2. Vitaly Lunkin – $419,832
3. Van Marcus – $278,409
4. Robin Keston – $196,994
5. Ferit Gabriellson – $148,439
6. Stefan Mattson – $118,463
7. Josh Arieh – $99,856
8. Richard Austin – $88,681
9. Barry Greenstein – $82,746
The $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout Event (#41) will crown a champion on Tuesday as five players will compete for a prize of $348, 728. The final table, which gets underway at 2:00 p.m., will look like this:
Seat 1: Maxim Lykov
Seat 2: Danny Wong
Seat 3: Andrew Lichtenberger
Seat 4: Peter “Belabacsi” Traply
Seat 5: Nasr El Nasr
Also playing down to a winner Tuesday is the $2,500 Mixed Event (#42). Fourteen players will take their seats at 2:00 p.m. Jon “PearlJammer” Turner has the chip lead but bracelet winners Layne Flack, Rami Boukai, Dario Alioto and Blair Rodman are in contention for the $ 241,637 payday.
Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for updates on all of today’s events at the World Series of Poker.
