News / Chris Edwards / 17 June 2008 / Leave a comment

The $5000 PLO w/Rebuys tournament has always been a favourite with the professionals. Unlike most games, PLO does not play well as a freezeout due to its regular all in situations and is why most pros prefer to play it in cash games. Having the option to rebuy for a period almost gives the best of both worlds, giving the cash game players a great chance at a bracelet.

This has led to another very prestigious final table at this year's WSOP, combining top tournament and cash game players. Here are the final table positions and chip counts:

Phil Galfond - 1,393,000
Brian Rast - 1,176,000
David Benyamine - 1,041,000
John Juanda - 694,000
Johnny Chan - 624,000
Kirill Gerasimov - 558,000
Daniel Negreanu - 460,000
Adam Hourani - 300,000
Phil Hellmuth - 119,000

Representing the top tournament players are John Juanda, Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth. They have 18 WSOP bracelets between them (of course Hellmuth owns most of them) with Juanda already holding one in PLO. Phil Hellmuth has been close to winning a bracelet in PLO after making a few final tables and although he admits it's not his best game, Negreanu claims Phil Ivey taught him how to play PLO. Each of them come from a cash game background so are definitely not one trick ponies.

David Benyamine and Phil 'OMGCLAYAIKEN' Galfond are two of the most popular names in the internet poker world. David is the biggest PLO winner since 2007 winning over $5.5m and the second biggest winner this year with almost $3m in winnings. Phil is the 4th biggest winner both this year and since 2007 winning over $1.5m this year and $2.5m since 2007. Also at the final table is Brian Rast who plays online as 'Tsarrast' and is in the top 10 winners in NL Hold'em this year.

Finally the last big name at the final table is the legendary Johnny Chan. He is one of the most successful players of all time at the WSOP with 10 bracelets, two of which are in PLO. He is also a long time player of the biggest mixed cash games, playing PLO as high as $2000/$4000. Barry Greenstein believes PLO is Chan's best game: 'his best results over the last few years in side games (and even in the WSOP) have been in pot-limit Omaha.'

Whether it's Hellmuth winning his 12th or Galfond winning his first, whoever takes this bracelet will rightly receive all the respect and admiration from the poker world.