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Josh Arieh emerged victorious in the 2023 World Series of Poker $10,000 limit hold’em championship to earn $316,226 and his fifth career gold bracelet. The win saw the 48-year-old become just the 34th player in poker history to have won five or more titles at the WSOP.
“This is all new to me in the last few years. I crushed in 2019, 2021, 2022, and now 2023. It just shows like, get your shit straight, get your life straight, and everything just works out,” Arieh told CardPlayer after closing it out. “I don’t play as good as these guys. I just… I don’t know what it is. You can ask anybody, and they’ll make fun of hands that I play and things that I do, but I keep getting there, so I’m doing something right.”
This win saw Arieh, the 2004 WSOP main event third-place finisher and 2021 WSOP Player of the Year award winner, increase his career tournament earnings to more than $11.3 million.
Arieh came into an unscheduled fourth day of play in this championship event as the shortest of three remaining players, but managed to battle his way back into the lead and then withstood a tough heads-up battle with three-time bracelet winner Daniel Idema to close out the win.
“Walking over [to play this event], I had the most calming feeling ever, it was surreal. I was walking by an older lady and I was like, wow, she looks beautiful today. And I walked by this family and I was like, wow, their family’s beautiful,” said Arieh when asked about surviving the roller coaster final day. “I just felt so calm and I knew that the chip stacks really didn’t matter. Everybody had to win the first few hands that they entered or you’re just done. And I was lucky to pick up a few hands and then I ran a bluff that worked. You know, I’ve got amazing people in my corner. I don’t play head-up limit hold’em, but I got like a five-minute crash course for some guys that play in Bobby’s room and are just really crushers, and here we are.”
This was Arieh’s second limit hold’em bracelet win. His first came half a lifetime ago, at the 1999 WSOP. He took down the $3,000 buy-in version of this event, coming out on top in the first event he’d ever cashed in at the series. His other three bracelets have all come in pot-limit Omaha and pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better events.
This was Arieh’s first title and fourth final-table finish of the year. He earned 660 Card Player Player of the Year points and 316 PokerGO Tour points as the champion of this event. He now sits just outside the top 150 in the 2023 POY race standings presented by Global Poker, and is now 15th in the “PGT standings.”:https://www.pgt.com/leaderboard
This year’s limit hold’em championship at the series attracted 134 total entries, building a prize pool of $1,246,200 that was ultimately split up amongst the top 21 finishers. Big names that ran deep included 2021 WSOP main event champion Koray Aldemir (21st), three-time bracelet winner Paul Volpe (20th), PokerGO President Mori Eskandari (17th), three-time bracelet winner Ian Johns (16th), four-time bracelet winner Ben Yu (11th), bracelet winner Ronnie Bardah (9th), bracelet winner Kevin Song (8th), four-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman (7th), Nick Pupillo (6th), and three-time bracelet winner Joe McKeehen (4th).
The 2015 main event champion’s elimination was the final one from day 3. He got the last of his chips in with K-9 facing the K-Q of Idema and was unable to come from behind. McKeehen took home $107,540 for his efforts, increasing his career earnings to nearly $20.1 million in the process.
When play was halted at around 2:30 am, Arieh was the shortest of the three remaining players, with Idema in the lead and recent $5,000 no-limit hold’em freezeout event third-place finisher Nozomu Shimizu in the middle.
It was all Arieh to start day 4, as he managed to surge into the lead before scoring the first knockout of the day. Shimizu had been left short after running into trips for Idema. He called off his last big bet with 9-2 on an A-J-7-9 board. Arieh had J-10 for a higher pair and a blank on the river saw Shimizu sent to the rail in third place ($144,069). He now has $765,150 in lifetime earnings, with most of that being won in the past week at the series.
Heads-up play began with Arieh holding 5,150,000 to Idema’s 2,995,000. Arieh pulled out to an even larger lead early, only to have Idema come all the way back to move ahead himself. The two went back and forth for a while, but Arieh eventually took a decisive lead and stretched it out until Idema was left with just a few bets.
In the final hand, Arieh raised with 9
4 from the button and Idema three-bet in the big blind with A
2
. Arieh called and the flop came down 553.Idema bet and Arieh called. The turn brought the 9
and Idema bet again. Arieh raised and Idema three-bet all-in. Arieh called and the river was the 9, giving Arieh nines full of fives for the win.
Idema earned $195,443 as the runner-up finisher. The Canadian former hockey player now has more than $2.4 million in recorded tournament earnings after this latest deep run.
Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded at the final table:
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points | PGT Points |
| 1 | Josh Arieh | $316,226 | 660 | 316 |
| 2 | Daniel Idema | $195,443 | 550 | 195 |
| 3 | Nozomu Shimizu | $144,069 | 440 | 144 |
| 4 | Joe McKeehen | $107,540 | 330 | 108 |
| 5 | Louie Hillman | $81,298 | 275 | 81 |
| 6 | Nicholas Pupillo | $62,255 | 220 | 62 |
| 7 | Nick Schulman | $48,298 | 165 | 48 |
| 8 | Kevin Song | $37,967 | 110 | 38 |
| 9 | Ronnie Bardah | $30,248 | 55 | 30 |
Visit the Card Player 2023 World Series of Poker page for schedules, news, interviews, and the latest event results.
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