Up until June, this was shaping up to be a very bad year for Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi. First off, Mizrachi hadn’t had a significant tournament cash since 2008, which probably led to his second bigger problem: he owed the IRS over $360,000. As was well documented in the poker news, Mizrachi, lost both of his Florida homes because of the tax debt.
Even still, 2010 is shaping up to be the best year of Mizrachi’s life – from a poker perspective – since he won the $50,000 Player’s Championship, and he has made three other final tables in the World Series of Poker. Getting back to the $50k Player’s Championship, Mizrachi won a $1.6 million prize for the victory, and cemented his place as one of the best tournament poker players in the world. But he wasn’t done yet because Mizrachi also made the final table of both the Seven Card Stud Championship and Limit Hold’em Championship. And the crazy thing is that he is still going!
That’s because Mizrachi made the final table of the WSOP Main Event where he is a member of the 2010 November Nine. While Mizrachi is currently 7th in chips going into the Main Event, he is no doubt the best player on a table full of nobodies. Even if Mizrachi doesn’t win the first place prize of $8.94 million, he can still take over $5.5 million for second place or $4 million for third.
Of course, for his legacy, it would be more preferential to take first or second because he would pass Phil Ivey on the all-time live tournament cash winners leaderboard. Ivey currently leads with $13.1 million in lifetime winnings, but Mizrachi (who has $8.6 million) could overtake him with a big finish. Regardless of what happens though, this is no doubt the year of Mizrachi.
