/ Editor / 18 June 2008 /

CONGRATULATIONS to Phil Galfond.

You may know him by the name OMGClayAiken.

Galfond worked his way through a talented field to win the $817,781 first prize in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/ Rebuys event. Oh, and the all important poker bracelet.

The final table featured: Johnny Chan, John Juanda, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and David Benyamine. Galfond's agonists boasted 28 bracelets between them.

Going into the table Galfond had a deep stack, and a better then decent chance of winning:

Seat 1: John Juanda (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 694,800
Seat 2: Phil Hellmuth (Palo Alto, California) -- 119,000
Seat 3: David Benyamine (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 1,041,000
Seat 4: Kirill Gerasimov (Moscow, Russia) -- 558,000
Seat 5: Phil Galfond (Madison, Wisconsin) -- 1,393,000
Seat 6: Daniel Negreanu (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 460,000
Seat 7: Brian Rast (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 1,176,000
Seat 8: Adam Hourani (East Lansing, Michigan) -- 300,000
Seat 9: Johnny Chan (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 624,000

Galfond won by dint of achieving two pair on the turn of a AQ86 board with A765 against Adam Hourani's AKJT.

Not bad for an online poker player.

And good for poker.

Big names in poker sell tickets, and the sponsors love them, but if they always win then the WSOP looks like a procession, a parade of the star turns.

And then with a rebuy event, the final table can be fiddled. Daniel Negreanu, for instance, was invested to the tune of $85,000 owing to his huge amount of rebuys.

Poker needs new names, not the same old pros...

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