Mo Arani Wins Event #81: $5,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold'em ($665,459)
Day 3 of Event #81 $5,000 Freezeout is now over after almost 12 hours of play that saw ten out of an original field of 746 enter and only one emerged as the victor of the $665,459 grand prize out of the total prize pool of $3,487,050.
Mo Arani won his first WSOP Bracelet after surviving a topsy-turvy heads-up battle vs Johannes Straver that capped off an exciting day of action.
Arani entered the day seventh in chips out of ten and was never the short stack or the big stack at any point; rather, he just coasted along in the middle for much of the day, largely avoiding big confrontations.
Event #81: $5,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold'em Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Payouts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mo Arani | United States | $665,459 |
| 2 | Johannes Straver | Netherlands | $411,279 |
| 3 | Peter Turmezey | Hungary | $292,665 |
| 4 | Adam Hendrix | United States | $211,295 |
| 5 | Toby Lewis | United Kindom | $154,806 |
| 6 | Francois Pirault | France | $115,122 |
| 7 | Cliff Josephy | United States | $86,917 |
| 8 | Michael Katz | United States | $66,638 |
Winner's Reaction
“It feels surreal to win. I was getting out-played heads-up, I don’t have any heads-up experience, so I got some coaching and decided to take more spots and be ready to gamble more”, as he referred to one of his poker friends and mentors Calvin Anderson who was supporting him on the rail the entire time.
“I never gave up. I was playing well when it was multi-way, the only time I felt like a worse player was during heads-up. But aside from that I was pretty comfortable in these spots.”
Before this victory, Arani had a little over a million in career earnings, with his largest score being about $220,000 back in 2013. Mainly a cash game player, this win will increase his total winnings by 60% as he takes a huge prize in one of the twenty or so tournaments that he plays per year.
Arani wanted to give a couple of shoutouts to some people who have helped his game. "I want to shoutout to Jonathan Jaffe, my coach. He is really good, and I was talking to him on breaks on the phone and Calvin (Anderson) as well."
Action of the Day
The day began with ten players and actually got off to a slow start as it took an hour and a half for Valentin Oberhauser to be the first elimination of the day. Caio Almeida followed him out the door in ninth shortly after that to bring the field down to the official final table of eight.
Michael Katz would then become the first victim of the final table as he was sent packing in eighth place. Seven-handed play would then hit a snag as it would take about three hours before Cliff Josephy hit the rail in seventh.
The day was ended for Francois Pirault and his camera crew when he was eliminated in sixth place. Toby Lewis went from a big stack to out the door next in fifth place, and following him out a few minutes later in fourth was Adam Hendrix whose bid for his first bracelet came up just shy.
Three-handed play would commence with the players fairly close in chips, with none of them being very short, and it looked like a long contest was coming. Things sprung into life when Arani spiked an eight on the turn to crack ace-queen with ace-eight to take a huge pot away from Straver, but Straver would return the favor when he rivered a four with ace-four to overcome the same ace-eight.
Peter Turmezey’s big stack would dwindle three-handed and the start-of-day chipleader would eventually bow out in third place to set up the heads-up play.
Heads-up was a wild affair that lasted three hours with several up and down changes in chips. Arani began with a huge lead before losing a few all ins to give Straver the lead. However, Arani would again take a big lead, but Straver would continue to stave off elimination. Eventually, Arani won two consecutive all ins to finish off the bracelet win.
That finishes the PokerNews coverage of this prestigious event. Thank you for tuning in for three days of action.
, giving Arani flopped-trips and eliminated Straver in 2nd place.
and the queens of Straver held to eliminate Turmezey in third place.
against the 
and his bid to win his first bracelet was denied.
, giving Lewis top pair but a flush draw for Arani. On the 
turn it was the end of the road for Lewis as Arani hit his flush and the 
completed the river sending Lewis to the rail in 5th place.
and the river the 
to bring an end to Pirault's run.
, with no help to the jack-nine of Josephy until the turn came the 
, which at first looked great for Josephy, until the table realized Straver made a flush with his kings and Josephy was eliminated in 7th place.
completed the board and Josephy checked. Straver took a moment before moving almost all his chips in with a bet of 1,520,000, leaving a single 100,000 chip behind. Josephy went deep in the tank but eventually folded and the big pot was sent to the Dutchman.
