In what was one of the most dominant performances in a major tournament ever, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi made history at the 2012 World Series of Poker on Thursday night in becoming the first man to ever win the $50,000 Poker Players’ Championship twice.
The eight men who came back for action on Thursday had waded through 108 of the best players in the game for this shot at the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy, the WSOP bracelet and a payday of $1,451,527. At the start of the final day of play, Mizrachi was atop the leaderboard with his 3.648 million in chips but right behind him was 2012 WSOP bracelet winner Andy Bloch (himself a runner-up in this tournament to the late Memorial Trophy namesake in 2006, the first year it was held) with 3.598 million. Other contenders included a strong contingent from Europe in Stephen Chidwick, Luke ‘FullFlush’ Schwartz and Bruno Fitoussi, along with two time WSOP bracelet winner Bill Chen, Roland Israelashvili and Chris Klodnicki.
They say that when there’s smoke, there’s fire, and the poker community is beginning to see more smoke coming from the direction of Full Tilt Poker. This week, a couple pieces of evidence have surfaced that point to the possibility of the re-opening of the once high-flying online poker room in the not-too-distant future.
