The final table of a Circuit Main Event is undeniably eventful on its own, but Darren Rabinowitz’s day was loaded with moments as he battled to win his fifth WSOP Circuit ring and first Main Event title at WSOPC Planet Hollywood.
Rabinowitz topped a 616-entry field to win $175,430, which also puts him over the $4,000,000 mark in career tournament earnings according to The Hendon Mob. The win also came with a $5,000 package to WSOP Paradise. Plus, he also picked up another $3,394 for not doing anything.
That extra little prize came for Rabinowitz’s 20th-place finish up the strip at the Wynn for a Day 2 he couldn’t attend because of his final table at Planet Hollywood. Rabinowitz blinded out and laddered up to add almost two extra Circuit Main Event buy-ins for his non-attendance in the other tournament.
The toughest Circuit in the country
Las Vegas tournaments always attract the best in the poker world, especially with events all over town this month, including a High Roller series at the PokerGO studio. Planet Hollywood’s WSOPC offering was as tough as they come, a fact the Las Vegas resident knows well and made his win that much sweeter.
“It feels great. I’ve played a lot of Circuits; I’ve never final tabled a Circuit Main, so it’s nice to finally final table one and win. It’s definitely the toughest Circuit in the country by a long shot. All of the big Circuits are kind of like that, you just have to know that going in.”
A runaway heads-up? Oh no, no.
Rabinowitz entered the day in third place behind start-of-day leader David Dibernardi and Kayla Clackum, but once that trio ended up becoming the final three to battle for the title, it was Rabinowitz who had grabbed the lead. He then extended it to what appeared to be an insurmountable 7-1 by the time he eliminated Clackum in third place to set up heads-up play with DiBernardi.
But that would not be the case.
DiBernardi battled to stay alive, cutting into the lead before finally doubling up a couple of times and taking the lead for the first time heads-up. From there, they would battle for almost three hours with the lead swinging several times. But each time DiBernardi grabbed the lead, it wasn't long until Rabinowitz had it back.
It was a battle much tougher than Rabinowitz may have expected when it began.
“It was very long, and gruelling, and tiring. A lot of small pots. A LOT of small pots, and then I felt like I was losing all of the all-ins, but I just tried to fight as hard as I could for all the small pots, and they added up. And then I won a couple of all-ins at the end, it was pretty sweet, I made a royal flush, yeah, it was cool.”
Indeed, a royal flush was part of Rabinowitz’s path to victory at one of the times that he needed to regain his lead from DiBernardi. Other times during the day with the nuts on the river, Rabinowitz went for a trap, but those spots which could have seen DiBernardi’s demise, he didn’t fall in and survived. These were moments that Rabinowitz really credited his opponent for.
“He played really well. He had really good reads of the situations and trusted his reads and was right most of the time. Yeah, it’s unfortunate for me when it happens, but at the same time, he played well. You can’t take anything away from someone who plays well.”
WSOPC Planet Hollywood Main Event final table results
- Darren Rabinowitz - $175,430
- David DiBernardi - $116,917
- Kayla Clackum - $81,321
- Katsumoto Sakaguchi - $57,545
- Drake Kemper - $41,439
- Jacob Mendelsohn - $30,378
- Yuanzhi Cao - $22,678
- Victoria Livschitz - $17,245
- Alan Merdita - $13,363
- Stephen Song - $10,556
