Josh Arieh became a five-time owner of the bracelet
On June 11, 48-year-old American Josh Arieh became a five-time owner of the bracelet, winning a limit hold’em tournament with a 10,000 USD buy-in. Arieh became only the 34th player in the history of the World Series Of Poker to win 5 or more series titles. The player’s reward for first place was 316,226 USD.
“All this is new to me in recent years. I won in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023. It just shows that you need to sort out your problems, adjust your life, and everything will work out. I’m not playing as well as these guys. Simply… I do not know what it is. You can ask anyone, and they will laugh at the hands that I play, but I keep getting my way, so I’m doing something right,” Arieh said.
In addition to five victories, Arieh’s asset is the third place in the WSOP 2004 main event. In 2021, the American became the best WSOP player. The player won his first bracelet back in 1999, also becoming the first in Limit Hold’em.
This is Arieh’s first title in 2023 and the fourth final table. For the victory, he was credited with 660 CardPlayer points and 316 PokerGO Tour points. The player’s earnings after the victory increased to 11.3 million USD.
The tournament dragged on
The Limit Hold’em tournament with a buy-in of 10,000 USD collected 134 entries, thanks to which there was 1,246,200 USD in the prize pool. This money went to the 21 best players. The prize zone included such players as the champion of the WSOP 2021 main event Koray Aldemir (21st place), 3-time bracelet winner Paul Volpe (20th), PokerGO President Mori Eskandani (17th), 3-time bracelet winner Ian Jones (16th) and 4-multiple holder of the bracelet Ben Yu (11th).
The tournament dragged on, and the remaining three had to finish playing the next day. Such finalists as bracelet holders Ronnie Bardah (9th place) and Kevin Song (8th), 4-time bracelet holder Nick Schulman (7th), Nick Pupillo (6th) and 3-time WSOP champion Joe McKeehen did not reach the last day.
When the game was stopped at 2:30 a.m., Arieh had the shortest stack. Daniel Idema was in the lead, and Nozomu Shimizu was second. After the resumption of the tournament, Arieh managed to get ahead, and then knocked out Shimizu. The Japanese player was left with a short stack after losing to Idema. In the last hand, Shimizu with a pair of nines lost to a pair of jacks to Arieh.
- Josh Arieh — 316,226 USD
- Daniel Idema — 195,443 USD
- Nozomu Shimizu — 144,069 USD
- Joe McKeehen — 107,540 USD
- Louis Hillman — 81,298 USD
- Nicholas Pupillo — 62,255 USD
- Nick Schulman — 48,298 USD
- Kevin Song — 37,967 USD
- Ronnie Bardah — 30,248 USD
The heads-up started with Arieh having 5,150,000 chips against Idema’s 2,995,000. Arieh increased the gap early, but Idema not only won back, but also took the lead. For a while, the players bypassed each other, but then the advantage passed to Arieh, and the stack of Idema gradually became smaller. In the final hand, Arieh collected a full house, while the opponent had two pairs.