New Yorker wins big in Vegas
The 2009 WSOP $2,500 buy-in Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) champion is Abe Mosseri, from New York. Mosseri collected $166,151 for first place and was awarded his first WSOP gold bracelet.
Mosseri is a 36-year-old professional poker player who started out as a backgammon player. He also played gin rummy for money in clubs in New York.
Mosseri began playing poker seriously as backgammon declined in popularity and as poker became the new phenomenon. He noted that several backgammon players have converted to become serious poker players.
Mosseri cashed in the 2004 WSOP Main Event, finishing in 120th place. He was the chip leader that year after Day Three. But he admits to going on tilt after a bad run on Day Four and busted out far short of the final table.
Mosseri estimates that he has played in about 30 WSOP events total (2004 to present).
On playing various games for a living: “My life story is kind of like Matt Damon’s story in Rounders, but in the game of backgammon.”
On how backgammon helped him become a better poker player: “I am a math guy. But I would not say I am a calculus genius, or anything. I do put a lot of math into poker, certainly more than most people. You know from math which hands to play, and which hands to get involved with based on the percentages. It’s very important.”
The final table included two former WSOP gold bracelet winners – including John Juanda and Blair Rodman.
The runner up was Masayoshi Tanaka, from Kanagawa, Japan. He is a 34-year-old software engineer. He is a Lowball specialist who plays poker mostly online. Tanaka would have been the first Japanese citizen to win a gold bracelet had he taken first place. Nonetheless, this was the highest finish ever in a WSOP event for a citizen of Japan. Second place paid $102,313.
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