This Week That Year #1: When Michael Mizrachi conquered the WSOP Africa Main Event

‘This Week That Year’ is an article series that will provide ‘a blast from the past’ in poker. Here we will feature some memorable events that happened in poker during a particular week in a previous year. From the smaller poker events that hardly anyone noticed to the big poker extravaganzas, we will give you a trip down poker history; week by week.

This week we bring to you some reflections from Michael Mizrachi’s Main Event win at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Africa last year. The WSOPA is an endevour of the WSOP to take poker to each and every continent and we highlight this event because poker is everyone’s game. Africa deserves it as much as Las Vegas does. So read on to find out what happened and how Mizrachi won and what impact it made for poker in Africa.

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Michael Mizrachi overcame a local-heavy player field to record a victory in the WSOP Africa Circuit Main Event at the Emerald Resort & Casino in South Africa on 10th February, 2013. After four-five days of action, the World Series of poker Africa Main Event came to an end with winning of Mizrachi, one of the finest and successful pokers pro. With this winning he added $101,000 to his lifetime earnings of over $14 million.

This win also meant a lot to African poker since Mizrachi was clearly the biggest name in the field.  From a field of 116 players, 15 players cashed and 13 out of them were Africans. Mizrachi also added his first WSOP Circuit Ring to his expanding poker silverware. “The Grinder” eliminated player’s right from the beginning by making a big call at the right time. The first to knock out of the final table was WSOP Africa Main Event winner Warren Zachey with (J♣ 7♣), against Mizrachi´s Q♠ Q♣ and then in eighth place, Eric Brand (A♦ 9♠) with whom Mizrachi (Q♣ 8♣) made his own flush draw. 

After that Menesh Keshav was sent crashing to the rail with his pocket Kings crushed by Jarred Soloman’s quad deuces, but Mizrachi controlled the table by now. The biggest pot in Mizrachi’s path to the title happened during four-handed play, when he picked up K K against  Jarred Solomon’s J J. Solomon was knocked out in fourth place. A second time when J J  appeared with a player they worked much better as Markus Feurie reigned over Kinesh Pather’s 8 8 . 

As always, Mizrachi was a very active and aggressive chip leader, involved in eliminating players and huge pots. In the end, Mizrachi won with ease eliminating Karl Myburgh in heads up play for his first Circuit Ring. This win by Mizrachi was also a landmark one for WSOPA since this was the biggest poker pro winning in the continent.

2013-WSOP Africa Circuit Main Event