Brikis and Jaka Finish 2nd and 3rd
by Rich on 07.03.09, 3:13 am
Once three-handed play began in Event #56 fireworks began to fly.
The first explosion came when Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka and Matt Hawrilenko got their chips in the middle pre-flop after a raise and a three-bet. It was a classic race situation:
Hawrilenko: A
K
Jaka: QQ
The entire pushed towards the table for the AJ
T flop. Hawrilenko’s camp cheered while Jaka’s fans shouted for a king. The turn was the J, which actually brought back Jaka’s queen outs since the board was paired. The river was the 5 though and Faraz was sent to the rail in 3rd place. Jaka received a round of applause from Hawrilenko, Brikis and the entire rail as he walked off to collect $400,526 for his finish.
Josh “brikdog24″ Brikis (pictured right) entered heads up with just under 5 million in chips. Hawrilenko had over 9 million. On the fourth hand Brikis raised to 300K before Hawrilenko said, “Let’s make it a million.”
“All in,” Brikis responded.
Hawrilenko instantly called turning over JJ. Brikis frowned and tabled A9. It felt like the rail was going to collapse, every spectator converged on the table as the dealer burned one card and flopped 882.
“LOW! ACE! DIAMOND! JACK!”
The dealer wrapped the table and turned the 3.
“HOLD!!! ACE ONE TIME!!!!!!”
The T on the river changed nothing and Hawrilenko threw his hands in the air, his face full of excitement. He rushed to his rail which included pros Gavin Griffin and Bill Chen.
Brikis was visibly disappointed, but we hope his friendly rail and $619,609 can cheer him up.
We’d like to congratulate all of the 56 bracelet winners thus far. It has been a long summer, but the grand-daddy of them all begins tomorrow; the 2009 WSOP Main Event!
