Home / Poker News June 2011 / 2011 WSOP – Elie Payan wins $1.5k PLO Event
2011 WSOP – Elie Payan wins $1.5k PLO Event
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2011-06-17 14:51
Day 16 of
2011 WSOP was certainly a busy one. It awarded two bracelets to the winners of the $1.5k PLO and the $2.5k 8-Game Mixed events. It also saw an event reach its final table and two others burst through their respective money bubbles. Two new events got rolling on Day 16 as well.
One of the bracelet winners of the day was Frenchman Elie Payan, who shot to glory in the $1.5k PLO event.
The final table reconvened with Juha Vilkki in the lead. Vilkki’s advantage was a rather substantial one: he had 1.23 million chips, while second place man Rafe Kilbrit only had 667k.
There was only one “name” player at the table at the start of the day: David Sands. Sands had a rather short stack though, so he wasn’t likely to cause a lot of ruckus during the final stretch.
Vilkki’s giant chip lead was only enough to tide him through to 4th place. His tournament ended there, at the hands of Stephen Wolfe, after his straight and flush draws both failed to fill up against Wolfe’s bottom trips.
David Sands survived the start of the day chip leader, finishing in 3rd place. His eventual elimination set up the heads-up stage of the action between Payan and Kilbrit.
Payan held a substantial lead over his opponent going into the home stretch, and he made full use of this advantage. They had locked horns several times through the final table, so their heads-up bout was pretty much the natural conclusion of their rivalry.
Kilbrit began the action by fighting back and by almost managing to even the odds, but just as he was about to do that, his opponent managed to land a few heavy punches, pulling away again – this time for good.
Kilbrit was down to a little more than 1 million chips when the final hand came about. The chips went into the middle on a flop of 4h,3h,2c. Payan had a heart-flush draw against Kilbrit’s pocket rockets. The Ah which fell on the turn completed his flush.
Payan picked up $292k for his efforts.
