Grinder grabs the gold!

Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, as of early this morning, no longer qualifies as one of the most talented players yet to earn a World Series of Poker bracelet having just taken down his first, by winning Event #2 of the 2010 WSOP- the $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship.

After many hours of final table play, Mizrachi defeated the last 7 players standing in his way to his first bracelet, despite entering the final table fifth in chips and needing to outlast such legends as Daniel Alaei, David Oppenheim, John Juanda and Robert Mizrachi- his brother- who began the final table with the chip lead and nearly 1,000,000 more chips than “The Grinder.”

Remarkably, both Michael and Robert actually made it all the way into the final five of the Poker Players Championship, breaking a WSOP record for the longest time two siblings have ever lasted in the same event; and for any who may have wondered whether these two would be willing to play their best against each other in such a situation, it should be noted that when Robert finally was forced to depart in fifth place, it was his brother Michael that took him out.

As expected, Robert Mizrachi proved himself a difficult obstacle for “The Grinder” to get past on his route to victory, as was David Oppenheim, despite entering the final table last in chips, but it was actually the slightly unknown Russian variable, Vladimir Schmelev, that proved the most dangerous of them all.  With the elimination of Oppenheim in third place, Schmelev entered heads-up play with significantly less chips than Mizrachi, but still managed to grab the chip lead on numerous occasions, seemingly even having “The Grinder” circling the drain more than once, and forcing him to depend on the luck of the river to survive.  Eventually however, “The Grinder’s” relentless pressure honed from years of playing the best in No-Limit Hold ‘em tournaments, proved itself too much for Schmelev- who is primarily a cash game specialist with few previous live tournament results- and Mizrachi was again proven a champion.

For the victory, Mizrachi earned his first WSOP bracelet, the right to hold the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy, and $1,559,046 in cash.  Overall not a bad result, especially for a player that last month could only get the poker media's attention by having his property foreclosed on.

The final table finish positions for Event #2 of the 2010 World Series of Poker are as follows:

1st.  Michael Mizrachi- $1,559,043

2nd.  Vladimir Schmelev- $963,375

3rd.  David Oppenheim- $603,348

4th.  John Juanda- $436,865

5th.  Robert Mizrachi- $341,430

6th.  David Baker- $272,275

7th.  Daniel Alaei- $221,105

8th.  Mikael Thuritz- $182,463

For more information on this event check out the live updates powered by PokerNews at www.wsop.com.