George Yazbek was eliminated in 15th place in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Prime Cyprus Championship — but that's only half the story after one of the craziest coolers reported deep in a poker tournament.
The WPT live reporting team captured the four-way all in that could have been a five-way all in had one player not folded a monster preflop hand. Four premium pocket pairs — plus one that was sent into the muck — went to tangle for a crucial pot in the $1,100 buy-in tournament at Chamada Prestige Hotel & Casino in Cyprus.
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Five pocket pairs in the same hand at the same table in no-limit hold'em is rare, but does happen. But five premium pocket being dealt in the same hand is about as rare as Phil Hellmuth suffering a bad beat without vocalizing his displeasure. Here's a hand that would have triggered the "Poker Brat" had he lost the pot.
Two tables and 15 players remained in the WPT Prime Cyprus Championship. One of those tables was livestreamed, but unfortunately the wildest hand of the tournament, and maybe even the year, transpired at the other table. But, on a positive note, the WPT live reporting team penned what went down.
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The hand began with Elad Shaar opening K♦K♥to 150,000, a min-raise, from early position. Senchylo Zuev (pictured), in the next position, looked down at A♦A♥.
"When you look down at aces, it's always good," Zuev told PokerNews. "Sometimes you might only get the blinds, but after seeing a raise before me it's much better."
With a short stack at the table, Zuev opted to set a trap. Tudor Perice, holding Q♥Q♣in middle position, three-bet to 500,000.
Three premium pocket pairs were already involved in the pot, but things were just getting started. Ilyas Unlu, who also had A♠A♣, put his small stack of 325,000 in the middle. George Yazbek (pictured), who looked down at J♣J♥in the big blind, then put his entire 3,470,000 stack in the pot.
Action then returned to the original preflop raiser, who had a decision to make with just over 4 million chips and pocket kings. He opted to go all in before Zuev called off 3,500,000 with aces.
"I knew that [Unlu] always folds all hands except aces," said Zuev. "So I didn't need time to make the call. Of course, it's a big trap."
Perice sniffed it out and wisely folded pocket queens face-up.
The board ran out 9♥2♠6♣8♠5♥, and Zuev held on to win a monster pot. Unlu chopped part of the main pot with aces, but Zuev moved into a massive chip leader at the time. Shaar dropped to 19 big blinds and busted soon after in 13th place for $12,000, while Yazbek was sent home in the cooler hand in 15th place, a $12,000 payday.
"I feel for my opponent," admitted Zuev. "Because I was knocked out of my last tournament kings versus aces for a chip leader stack. So sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."
Zuev would give back about a quarter of his stack before the session concluded. He'll enter the final table with a small chip lead over Tudor Purice and Emile Abi-Daher when play resumes at 1 p.m. local time on Monday.
The final table will be livestreamed on a 30-minute delay on YouTube.
*Images courtesy of the World Poker Tour.
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