Home / Poker News June 2011 / 2011 WSOP – Mikhail Lakhitov Wins $2.5k NL Holdem Event
2011 WSOP – Mikhail Lakhitov Wins $2.5k NL Holdem Event
Posted by: Randy Williams - Sun, 2011-06-26 14:39
Day 25 of the 2011 WSOP ended the bracelet drought by awarding no fewer than 3 titles and gold bracelets.
The first bracelet winner of the day was Mikhail Lakhitov, who earned his
WSOP stripes in the $2.5k NL Holdem event. Only 5 players were left in contention after the previous day of action, which was supposed to see the event play down to a winner. Thomas Middleton was the one who held the lead at this stage. Eddy Sabat, who plays online at
PokerStars, was playing as well, his short-stack though didn’t give him a whole lot of ammo to gun high. As a matter of fact, as the action kicked off, he became the first player to be sent to the rail. He picked up K,7o and with his chips running thin, he was forced to make a move on it. Thomas Middleton pounced on the opportunity to draw first blood and his A,Q was quite up to the job indeed. The A which fell on the flop sealed Sabat’s tournament fate.
When the 3-handed stage was reached, Lakhitov was the short-stack. He managed to catch a nice break though and soon he had built up a dominating lead.
He doubled up twice, once at the expense of Hassan Babajane, then at that of Thomas Middleton. Against Babajane, he flopped a set of 2s. Against Middleton, he hit a runner-runner flush to thrust his stack above the 11 million mark. Middleton was the one who busted in 3rd place to set up the heads-up stage between Babajane and Lakhitov.
Lakhitov had such a huge chip lead going into the final stretch though, that it was barely going to be a battle at all.
Only a few hands in, Lakhitov shoved all-in holding K,2o. Babajane made the call holding Qd, 8d. The flop fell Ah,Ad,6d, giving Babajane a flush draw. The turn and the river both missed Babajane’s hand and Lakhitov picked up the bling.
