13:31

26 Jun

Mike Gorodinsky outlasted a tough field of 84 players to win the 2015 Poker Players’ Championship. His name will be inscribed on the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy, joining the elite group of eight other players who were fortunate enough and skillful enough to claim this prestigious title.

This was the 10th time that Poker Players’ Championship was played at the World Poker Series. It all began in 2006 when it was introduced to series as $50,000 H.O.R.S.E .event. The tournament was changed to Eight-Six game mix with addition of NLHE, 2-7 Triple Draw, and Pot Limit Omaha in 2010. The 2010 was also the first year when the name Poker Players' Championship was officially used. That year, the title went to Michael 'The Grinder' Mizrachi, without a doubt one of the best all-around players, who confirmed his dominant position in 2012, when he claimed the victory again.

The tournament saw some more changes introduced again this year, as 2-7 NL Single Draw and Badugi were added to the mix. The ten-game mix was regularly used at other WSOP events but never in events with buy-ins bigger than $2,500. However Mike Gorodinsky really liked the change, especially since Badugi is one of his favorite games as he explained to WSOP.com blog. In his opinion, there should be a Badugi standalone event because it’s a really complex and interesting game.

The event attracted 84 of the best poker players in the world, generating the $4,032,000 prize pool.

Before winning his second WSOP gold, Mike faced a tough heads-up duel with Jean-Robert Bellande. The interesting fact is that Mike collected his first major victory five years ago in eight-game mix event after defeating Bellande heads-up. In the 2015 WSOP series, the history repeated. When heads-up duel began Mike was had only a slight chip but was able to extend that lead, gaining about 3-1 advantage over JRB. The chips went back and forth for a while, but eventually Gorodinsky was able to break JRB's defenses and strike the finishing blow.

Gorodinsky collected his second career bracelet and took home first place prize of $1,270,086, while Bellende collected $784,828 for his efforts.

This was yet another Mike’s top performance at this year’s Series as he finished second in the Razz Championship, got eliminated third in $5,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event and just missed a final table in the Stud Championship by finishing ninth.

After the tournament was over Mike revealed that he registered at a Day 2 because he was not feeling well on Day 1. He hates playing sick but, as he explained, although he would have skipped almost any other tournament, this one was special to him so he had to make an exception.

The 84 entrants included number of previous WSOP bracelet winners, like Michael Mizrachi, David Bach, Matthew Ashton and John Hennigan. Of these, only Matthew Ashton managed to cash this year as he finished 12th and took home $87,010.

Michael Mizrachi still remains the only two-time winner of the event (2010 and 2012).