Nabil Hirezi wins WPT Jacksonville bestbet Open

wptjaxNabil Hirezi consolidated on his final table lead and won the World Poker Tour(WPT) Jacksonville bestbet Open denying James Calderaro a second WPT title in Florida within an year. The local player was railed by a huge fan following of family and friends and roar went up in the poker room as the 59 year old denstist parcticasing locally for 22 years defeated Calderaro for the title. He won $206,041, the WPT Title and also etched his name in the WPT Champions Club.

A well known name in Faraz Jaka was the first to exit in 6th place very soon in the day when Peter Le dominated the pocket Kings of the former with his pocket Aces. An hour and a half later it was the turn of former WPT champ Jordan Cristos to exit and chip up Hirezi to nearly 60% of the chips in play. Peter Le who had been crippling all this while went next to Brian Green who had earlier taken away a huge pot of 4 millions from Le.

Calderaro who had been quiet all day then took control of action when three way action started. He took lead and was also responsible for Green’s elimination in 3rd place. With the blinds at 15,000/30,000 , Calderaro raised to 75,000 from the button and Green triple-bet to 250,000, Calderaro called, and Green moved all in for roughly 880,000 on a flop of {j-Diamonds}{10-Spades}{5-Spades}. Calderaro called with the  {j-Hearts}{10-Diamonds}  for top two pair, and Green needed to improve with the  {q-Spades}{q-Hearts}, though the turn of  {8-Hearts} gave Green some outs for a straight  but the river showed  {3-} and he was eiminated for $86,043 .When heads up play started, Calderaro started was ahead  with 4.090 million chips to Hirezi’s 3.66 million, but Hirezi regained the lead on the very first hand.

It was up and down for a while ang the players exchanged a lot of chips before Hirezi finally won the title. On the final hand, Calderaro limped in on the button, Hirezi raised to three times the big blind, making it 150,000 to go, and Calderaro raised to 550,000. Hirezi moved all in for 3.395 million, and Calderaro snap-called. The players revealed their cards as

Calderaro: {a-Clubs}{k-Diamonds} 

Hirezi: {10-Clubs}{10-Diamonds}

The flop of {k-Hearts}{6-Hearts}{5-Hearts} gave the lead to Calderaro but the turn was the {q-Hearts} which increased Hirezi’s outs to chop the pot with a flush on board. The river was not a heart, but a lucky {10-Spades} which gave Hirezi a set of tens, the best hand, and the title, all in dramatic fashion.