David Benyamine has won the PartyPoker Premier League Poker IV title and $400,000!
Benyamine eliminated Luke Schwartz in the heads-up battle for the title. Both players had a pair of queens but David Benyamine had a higher kicker card than Luke Schwartz.
David Benyamine: I’m not used to it
David Benyamine said: “It feels really good winning a title, I’m not used to it. The whole time I never thought about winning, I just wanted to do what I thought was right. I know people always say that when they win but it’s true.
I haven’t really been around for a while and I hope this gives me momentum going forward! I really enjoyed the format and competition – I’m sure it will make great TV.
Position in these final tables can help and I didn’t do anything special today, I just got hands at the right time and played my own game. Luke Schwartz is a very impulsive player but I just stuck to my own game heads-up and it was enough.”
Giovanni Safina takes $120,000 back to Sicily
PartyPoker’s Italian qualifier Giovanni Safina finished third taking $120,000 back to Palermo, Sicily. Safina was very unlucky in the last hand as he was in the lead until Luke Schwartz hit a lucky 3 on the river to eliminate the Party qualifier.
Giovanni Safina said: “This was a mind blowing experience, truly amazing. I am happy with my result. It is just so fantastic that one online qualifier like me who invested so little money on an online site can get to such a big stage as this playing with the best players in the world for a whole week in the PartyPoker Premier League.”
Daniel Negreanu, who beat last year’s winner JC Tran in the heads-up playoff earlier in the day, finished 4th taking $80,000. David Benyamine knocked Negreanu out with a full house versus a flush draw.
Phil Unabomber Laak chipleader but out first
Roland De Wolfe beat PartyPoker’s Ian Frazer in the heads-up playoff and finished 5th at the final table winning $70,000. De Wolfe had AJ but was knocked out by Daniel Negreanu and his pocket nines.
Chipleader at the start of the final table, Phil Laak, was eliminated first winning $50,000. Unabomber Laak had pocket tens while Benyamine had AK and hit the A on the turn to knock out the favourite Laak out.
Total prize pool of the PartyPoker Premier League IV was $1.5 million and these are the total payouts including the league stages:
- David Benyamine $476,000
- Luke Schwartz $258,000
- Giovanni Safina $158,000
- Phil Laak $146,000
- Daniel Negreanu $132,000
- Roland De Wolfe $114,000
- Ian Frazer $52,000
- JC Tran $40,000
- Phil Hellmuth $38,000
- Yevgeniy Timoshenko $32,000
- Vanessa Rousso $32,000
- Tony G $22,000
PokerNews has all the live blogging details, while you can see all the pictures at PartyPoker’s Facebook page.
