It seems if Afshin Majidi decides to cash in a major poker tournament, nothing less than a final table finish will do. Previously showing only one “official” major tournament cash on his Hendon Mob player profile, for a 7th place finish in the 2010 British Columbia Poker Championships $2,500 worth more than $48,000, Majidi almost doubled that score this weekend in Edgewater Casino’s $1,500 Main Event. This time however, Afshin gets the title and bragging rights of a first place finish, along with over $90,000 for the win.
Majidi began the day and final table of nine with the second shortest starting stack; well below average at 199,000 compared to the 773,000 of chip leader Jody Howe.
According to updates via MD Hughes, after picking up a few chips early into Day 3, Afshin was really put to the test by Matt Jarvis; faced with making the call on a huge 133k river bet on a board of Q8Q73 that would have left him crushed if wrong, Majidi made the right call with 8,10 and jumped to around 900,000, while whatever Jarvis held made the muck.
A few hours later Majidi found himself flipping for the double up, his Pocket Nines holding against Jody Howes’ Ace Ten, costing day’s chip leader to start all but a few blinds.
In the mean time, Matt Jarvis was busy doing his some of his fine work on the felts, responsible for sending 3 out of the first 4 final table eliminations to the rail. Unfortunately for Matt, it seemed that Afshin had Jarvis pegged on this day, getting paid off on an almost 600k river bet with Ace Ten on a board of TT4Q9; though giving 350k back shortly aftet on their next big showdown.
The two would continue to butt heads until finally, Afshin sent the WSOP champion packing in 3rd place, holding Pocket Tens vs Matt’s King Seven. Jarvis didn’t make out badly for his 3 days work however, collecting over $32,000 from the prize-pool for his finish, while a few well placed “cross book” bets are rumored to have topped him up to nearly $80,000.*
KC Nam had about a 3-2 chip advantage over Afshin when heads up play began, but just a few hands in would find himself at almost a 4-1 disadvantage after his AK failed to improve against Afshin’s Pocket Nines. Finally, KC would wind up dominated in an all-in situation, holding A4 vs A9 to give Majidi the win.
Here are the final results:
1st Afshin Majidi $90,558
2nd KC Nam $47,385
3rd Matt Jarvis $32,468
4th Victor Deol $22,815
5th Jody Howe $18,779
6th Zhi Pan $15,600
7th Charles Shapiro $13,163
8th Jun Ishii $10,881
9th Joey Weissman $8,775
10 – Matt Kachigan $7,020
11 – Don Krekoski $7,020
12 – Roneen Shaffer $7,020
13 – Anthony Smith $5,441
14 – Allan Berger $5,441
15 – Gene Lockerby $5,441
16 – David Smith $4,212
17 – Tom Le $4,212
18 – Neil Arnold Davey $4,212
19 – Arif Dhalla $3,335
20 – Tom Karavas $3,335
21 – Brad Booth $3,335
22 – Tyler Hamade $3,335
23 – Hanjoon “Mike” Kim $3,335
24 – Young Min “Mike” Kim $3,335
25 – Phillip Elliott $3,335
26 – Kristy Lee $3,335
27 – Ilya Vikouvlovski $3,335
*For those not familiar with “cross booking”, essentially it is a “last longer” between two players, with the loser having to pay the difference between the two players earnings for the tournament. In this example, a player who had cross booked 100% and busted before the money would have to pay 3rd place money plus the buy-in; even a 50% cross book is worth almost $20,000 for this deep run and Jarvis was said to have had several players put out the challenge. As the buy-ins and prize-pools can be considerably lower here in Canada, high stakes players often make these side bets to raise the ante and keep each other interested and on their best game. It must be noted that this practice is not endorsed, recognized or in anyway enforced or regulated by the venues hosting and completely at the risk an honor of the individuals involved.
