Bari was his usual nonchalant self, even in victory

Allen Bari’s cut under his eye makes it look like he lost a fight, but he was the one throwing the punches in the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event.  He dominated a tough final table that included the likes of Ricky Fohrenbach and Maria Ho to pick up his first gold bracelet and over $870,000.

The win is a career score and a marquee victory for the New Jersey poker pro, but even in victory, Bari was his typically glib and confident  self.

“The bracelet means a lot, but I don’t really think a bracelet should validate you as a player,” Bari explained after his win Sunday. “For example, Eugene Katchalov won a bracelet yesterday and he should probably have four, because he’s the illest. And I’m the illest, so I should probably have four, but I only have one and stinkers like Phil Hellmuth have 11, so it is all meaningless.”

Bari is a big believer in tournament variance and the cards certainly fell his way a couple of times at the final table.  With a little luck and some big stack bullying, Bari navigated through the final ten, knocking out four of his opponents along the way.

The final table predominantly featured preflop play thanks to a number of shallow stacks.  The action got off to a quick start, as Joseph Kuether hardly had any time to settle in his seat before he ran AQ into Sean Lefort’s AA in an all-in preflop confrontation that saw Kuether head home in tenth place. Farzad Bonyadi exited in ninth place soon after when he shoved his short stack all-in with pocket nines and Jesse Chinni called with A7. An ace on the flop gave the pot to Chinni and sent the seasoned vet to the rail.

Chinni took that pot, but he would be the next to go when he moved all-in over the top of a raise from Ricky Fohrenbach with AT when Fohrenbach held pocket kings. Chinni exited in seventh place and Fohrenbach amassed the only stack that came close to competing with Bari’s.

Then, a pivotal hand of the final table changed all of that. Fohrenbach opened for a raise and Bari moved all-in behind him. Fohrenbach tanked a while before risking his tournament life with TT. He was racing with Bari’s AJ. The J98 flop paired up Bari to give him the advantage, but Fohrenbach did pick up an open-ended straight draw. He failed to improve though, as the turn brought the 3 and the river the 2 to send Fohrenbach home in sixth and send Bari soaring over eight million chips.

With Bari controlling 60% of the chips in play, the rest of the table basically had one move: all-in. Bari knocked out Thomas Ross in fifth place when his A8 ran out a flush against Ross’ AT. As Day 3 wound down, Bari actually doubled up some of his opponents , but it still didn’t make a dent in his stack, which had his three opponents collectively covered over three times over.

The hard stops meant play ended with four players, but when play resumed the trend of doubling up continued when Ho picked up two doubles in quick succession to jump to second in chips. While Ho thrived, the other short stacks struggled. Nicholas Blumenthal doubled once, but hit the rail in fourth place when his pocket eights lost a flip to Ho’s AQ.

LeFort also doubled to stay alive, but couldn’t get any momentum going and exited in third place when he ran pocket tens into Bari’s pocket kings. That set up a heads-up battle between Bari and Ho with Bari holding a more than 5-1 chip lead.

Ho tried to rally, but she failed to overcome the chip disadvantage.  On the final hand of play, Ho shoved all-in with A4 and Bari quickly called with pocket eights.  The eights held and Bari claimed his first career WSOP bracelet, while Ho had to settle for second.

It was a career score for both players, but Bari said that the win doesn’t change his plans to slow down his poker playing once the WSOP draws to a close.

“I was expecting one bracelet. Three bracelets is where I say maybe I won’t quit. One bracelet definitely doesn’t cancel retirement, but it does slow it down a bit.”

Here are the final table results from the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Event:

1st: Allen Bari – $874,116
2nd: Maria Ho – $540,020
3rd: Sean LeFort – $348,128
4th: Nicholas Blumenthal – $255,028
5th: Thomas Ross – $189,574
6th: Ricky Fohrenbach – $142,821
7th: Jesse Chinni – $108,914
8th: Mikhail Lakhitov – $84,033
9th: Farzad Bonyadi – $65,535
10th: Joseph Kuether – $51,713

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