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Gal Yifrach wins maiden bracelet at WSOP 2018

USA’s Gal Yifrach has been playing live poker tournaments since more than 7 years and a couple of days back marked the best achievement of his career – winning a WSOP gold bracelet. The 2018 World Series of Poker has been on since over 20 days now and once again, a first-time winner was crowned.

Yifrach had no cashes so far in this year’s WSOP but that was about to change as he entered Event #28: $3K NLHE 6-Max and bested a field of 868 entries to finish first and take home a handsome pay check of $461,798. This became his career-best live cash and he is now just under $70k away from reaching the $1 million milestone.

The 31-year-old Israel-born entrepreneur is a recreational poker player and this would be quite an impressive win for him, recovering from being 15th in the chip count out of the 20 survivors that took to the tables on Day 3. This became his second major title after winning a WSOP Circuit tournament in Los Angeles last year.

Yifrach began heads-up against James Mackey with a 2:1 lead, lost it pretty soon and then won the final hand, with the entire heads-up battle lasting just seven hands. Mackey went all-in on the turn holding pocket tens on an 8-high board and was in the lead as Yifrach held A-8, but luck was on the latter’s side as an 8 opened on the river, to give Yifrach his first gold bracelet.

“You don’t make a final table every tournament. I was fortunate enough and am happy my family and girlfriend came to support me. I’m very happy. Everybody has hopes, and everybody is hoping to get very far. I was fortunate enough to get there,” said Yifrach after this big win.

Final table results:

1. Gal Yifrach – $461,798 (~INR 3.14 crore)
2. James Mackey – $285,377
3. Gary Hasson – $193,716
4. Aaron Mermelstein – $133,731
5. Darren Rabinowitz – $93,917
6. Ana Marquez – $67,116

Keep reading GutshotMagazine.com for regular updates on WSOP 2018 events, as well as other poker tournaments from around the world.

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