2010 WSOP Event #25 – Sam Farha Wins $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo World Championship

Event #25 at the 2010 WSOP, $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo World Championship kicked off with 215 runners looking for WSOP glory. By the time the event was completed, it was an Omaha specialist that would take his third WSOP gold bracelet.

Sam Farha - Event #25 Champion

Day 1 started with 215 players and by days end, 145 of those player remained. As such, both Day 2 and Day 3 proved to be marathon sessions. Day 2 saw the field break the bubble with 27 players receiving paydays. Jeff Lisandro, Huck Seed, and Dan Heimiller all made the money in this event. By the end of the day, 23 players remained to return on Day 3 and try to take the bracelet.

Nobody had any idea just how long Day 3 would take with 23 players returning. Chino Rheem and David Baker both fell short of the final table and Mike Sexton wound up bubbling the final table. James Dempsey and Sam Farha both made the final table of this event. Dempsey was looking for his 2nd bracelet of the 2010 WSOP and Farha was looking for career bracelet #3. Dempsey started the final as chip leader. Here are how the final nine players stacked up to start the final table:

James Dempsey 1,535,000
Yueqi Zhu 997,000
Abe Mosseri 914,000
Tony Merksick 764,000
Sammy Farha 608,000
Michael Chow 570,000
Sergey Altbregin 550,000
Eugene Katchalov 320,000
Steve Wong 92,000

Steve Wong was the first player knocked out from this final table. He was all-in pre-flop against both Sammy Farha and James Dempsey. Farha bet the flop of Kh-6s-5s and Dempsey made the call. Both the turn Qc and river 10d were checked around and at showdown, Farha showed Ac-3h-10s-9s for a pair of tens. Dempsey mucked and Wong showed A-3-8-6 for just lowly sixes. Steve Wong finished in 9th place, good for $44,619.

Abe Mosseri went out in 8th place. On a flop of Ad-4s-9d, Mosseri was all-in against Richard Zhu holding Ac-Ks-Js-5d for top pair. Zhu held As-Qh-6h-2s for a low draw and same pair with worse kicker. The turn fell the 9s and Mosseri was looking to double up. The river fell the Qd to give Zhu a better two pair. Mosseri was out in 8th place and took home $57,552.

Eugene Katchalov was all-in pre-flop against both Sammy Farha and Sergy Altbregin. On a flop of Kd-8c-8s, Farha bet and Altbregin made the call. Both opponents checked the turn 4h and river Kh. At the river, Altbregin showed Ah-Ks-7h-2s and that was good enough to beat Farha hand and Katchalov’s As-Ad-Qc-5s. Eugene Katchalov finished in 7th place and took home $74,670.

Michael Chow was then all-in pre-flop against James Dempsey. He held As-6s-7d-4h to Dempsey’s Ah-Ks-5h-2c. The board fell Q-9-3-3-J to totally miss both players and Dempsey’s A-K was good to knock Chow out in 6th place. Chow took home $97,508 for his 2nd Omaha final table of this WSOP.

Tony Merksick was knocked out on what turned out to be the biggest pot of the final table to this point. The pot was capped pre-flop between Merksick, Sergey Altbregin, James Dempsey, and Yeuqi Zhu. The flop fell Kc-10c-7s and Zhu bet. Everyone called and the turn fell the 6h. Zhu bet again and this time Merksick called all-in for just 5,000 in chips. The other two also called. The river fell the 6s and Zhu bet out again. Only Dempsey made the crying call to have Zhu flip over Ks-Kh-Jh-Jd. Dempsey’s As-Ad-8s-5h was beat, as was Merksick’s Ac-6c-5c-3s. Tony Merksick was out in 5th place, good for $128,097.

Sergey Altbregin was all-in on a flop of Ah-Kc-Qd and was called by Yueqi Zhu. Altbregin held Ad-7h-5c-4c and Zhu held Ac-Kh-9h-9c for top two pair. The turn 9s gave Zhu trip nines and the winning hand. Sergey Altbregin was out in 4th place, taking home $169,368.

Yueqi Zhu was knocked out in 3rd place. He was all-in pre-flop with 4d-5h-10c-10d and faced the Ah-Kh-4s-5s of James Dempsey. The flop of 2d-8c-4h gave both a pair and Dempsey the nut low. The turn 3h gave Dempsey a wheel, but now Zhu could chop if a six fell. The river fell the Jd and Yueqi Zhu was knocked out in 3rd. He took home $225,326 for his 3rd place finish.

Sam Farha started heads up play leading 4.3 Million to just 2.1 Million for Dempsey. At this point it was already around 3 A.M. in the morning, but we were far from finished. Dempsey put up a great fight and even held the chip lead on a couple of occasions. Not to be outdone, Farha kept battling and would keep coming back. Then around 7 a.m. Farha delivered a crushing blow to Dempsey when he rivered aces-full to leave Dempsey with just 200,000 in chips with the big bet at 360,000. Those chips then went in pre-flop with Dempsey holding J-8-6-5 and Farha holding J-9-7-4. The flop fell 10-4-3 missing both players. Then in a strange finish, the turn and river both fell tens to give both players trip tens. However, Farha had three tens with a J-9 against three tens with J-8 for Dempsey. As such, James Dempsey was eliminated in 2nd place, and took home $301,790.

Sammy Farha survived a marathon final day to win his third WSOP gold bracelet and $488,237. All three of his bracelets are in Omaha, with two of them being in Omaha Hi-Lo. Congratulations to Sammy Farha, Event #25 Champion.

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