Michael Mizrachi Wins Event #5 €10,400 No-Limit Hold'em (Split Format)
Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi has just climbed to the top of this WSOPE heap, winning his second gold bracelet in two years and adding another €336,008 to his wallet. That moves him into sixth place on the all-time money list.
Coming out of the big-stacked half of the bracket, Mizrachi's road to the final appeared to be a tough one, but he did what he could to make it look easy. On the very first hand of his Round-of-16 match, Grinder found pocket kings against Kent Lundmark's pocket tens, and a win there proved to be a good omen for Mizrachi.
Next up for Mizrachi was a contest with Brian Hastings. Hastings, who is more famous for his online action than his live, was in excellent form after stopping the unstoppable Erik Seidel in Round One. When the match started off both players had around half a million chips each but the Grinder was simply stunning; he won every pot of note until Hastings was reduced to moving all-in with 
and The Grinder called with 
and he was into the semi-final.
In the semi-final, Mizrachi found himself up against a man very much on top of his game. Roger Hairabedian had recently battled his way through to the Partouche Main Event final table where he will try to win, a not too shabby, €1 million first prize. Hairabedian had disposed of Dimitry Motorov and Brian Powell en route to his encounter with the Grinder. Both players started with the biggest stacks of the semi-final and they both knew that the winner would carry a 2:1 chip advantage into the final, so it was a lot at stake. The match itself was slow and sedentary until the climax and a quite incredible hand. Hairabedian must have been ecstatic when he flopped a set of fives on a 
board, but not half as ecstatic as Mizrachi who turned a straight holding 
when the 
made an appearance. A classic cooler for Hairabedian who was out in 3rd.
Onto the final and his opponent was Shawn Buchanan. Buchanan had already cashed in two WSOPE events this series and was in fine form; but he did have a 2:1 chip disadvantage. The chip difference proved to be all the difference because it enabled Mizrachi to extert pressure and exert it he did. The critical hand that sent Buchanan to the depths of despair was when the sign of the devil appeared on the flop. It was 
and Mizrachi extracted two-thirds of the Buchanan stack before forcing him to fold to an all-in jam on the river. Then the final hand of Event #5 and Mizrachi added that piece of luck to his skill jigsaw. Mizrachi moved all-in over a Buchanan raise and Buchanan made the call. It was the 
of Mizrachi versus the 
of Buchanan but a 
in the window sealed the deal and handed Mizrachi his second WSOP bracelet.
