For the second time in his career poker pro Daniel Alaei is a World Series of Poker bracelet winner.

World Champion. No matter what type of competition you’re talking about it means the same thing. You’ve earned the right for that day, that week or that year to call yourself the best in the world at something. As the sun rises on another day at the 2009 World Series of Poker Wednesday morning Daniel Alaei is waking up to call himself just that, Omaha 8-or-better World Champion.

Alaei defeated a final table that included the likes of bracelet winners Daniel Negreanu, Annie Duke and Scott Clements to win the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship, the WSOP bracelet and first place money of $445,898. The bracelet is Alaei’s second.

“I didn’t have a lot of chips throughout the whole tournament. I dipped pretty low today and I was happy to go the final table with 500,000 and change,” said Alaei. “I kinda just coasted for a little while and then I caught a rush of cards. People started getting knocked out and my chip stack kept building and next thing you know I have a big lead.”

“Once you get that lead, it’s hard to get that away from you.”

Yueqi Zhu was the first player to found his way off of the final table. Greg Jamison made trip nines against the pair of kings of Zhu and the former Chinese national was eliminated. Busting out in eighth spot was Duke. The former Celebrity Apprentice star raised, Jamison re-raised all-in and both John Monnette and Duke called all-in. Jamison showed A J 5 3, Duke showed A K Q 2 and Monnette revealed 7 8 9 3. The board ran out 2 3 6 6 7 giving Monnette the high hand, two pair, and Jamison the low hand, A-2-3-5-6 and Duke was eliminated.

Monnette was next to go but not before the new WSOP penalty system was put in place. After getting most of his chips into the pot in a hand with Clements the runner-up to Phil Ivey in Event 8 was left with one chip. After a flop of Q 9 9 Monnette picked the chip up and Clements assumed that it was being bet and overturned his hand. For exposing his hand early Clements was given a penalty of one orbit. Monnette busted a few hands later at the hands of Ben Boyd.

The next elimination sent most of the standing room only crowd home. Negreanu, whose chip stack had ridden a roller coast all day long, and Clements, who felt the wrath of Negreanu when his earlier error allowed Monnette to stay alive and had the potential to cost Negreanu a slot on the WSOP POY race and money ladder for this event, went toe-to-toe on what would be the last hand for the crowd favorite.

After a flop of 3 4 4 Negreanu bet his last 40,000 and Clements made call and tabled 2 3 5 5 while Negreanu showed 2 4 9 T. The A on the turn spelled disaster for Negreanu as it completed his wheel giving him the high and low pots. Negreanu left the final table area to find his seat in the $3,000 HORSE event and a majority of the crowd went with him.

Alaei had 4.3 million of the 5.3 million chips in play when three-way action began. It took only 20 minutes before Bishop found himself short-stacked, all-in and behind. All three players saw the J 5 2 flop, Alaei bet 80,000 and Bishop moved all-in for another 10,000. Both Clements and Alaei called to see the K on the turn. Both players checked. After the 3 fell on fifth street Alaei bet and Clements got out of the way. Alaei showed down K T 6 4 for a straight to the six to scoop the pot and send Bishop to the cashier cage.

Heads-up action didn’t last but three minutes. Alaei’s chip advantage proving to be too much for Clements, who owns two bracelets in Omaha variations. With all the money in the middle preflop Clements showed A 2 3 5 and Alaei was ahead with A K K 4. The board didn’t produce any low hand possibilities and Alaei took down the pot and the title of World Champion.

“Everybody at the final table played good today. It’s big buy-in event with a small field so there aren’t too many bad players. Nobody was giving anything away, everyone was playing their best and I’m just happy the cards fell my way today,” said Alaei.

 WSOP Omaha 8-or-better World Championship Final Table Payouts

1. Daniel Alaei - $445,898
2. Scott Clements - $275,946
3. Ben Boyd - $182,730
4. Daniel Negreanu - $130,401
5. John Monnette - $97,422
6. Greg Jamison - $77,736
7. Tom Koral - $65,453
8. Annie Duke - $58,049
9. Yueqi Zhu - $54,179

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