NEWS FLASH: Matt Keikoan Wins WSOP Gold Bracelet in Event 29
Northern California Poker Pro Gets Second WSOP Victory
Matt Keikoan was the winner of the $10,000 buy-in Limit Hold’em championship at the 2010 World Series of Poker. This marked his second career WSOP gold bracelet victory. He previously won the $2,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em event in 2008.Keikoan, from San Rafael, CA is a 42-year-old professional poker player. Keikoan started out working as a poker prop for about eight years before phasing gradually into the life of a working poker pro. Keikoan played at Casino San Pablo in the San Francisco Bay area. While working as a poker prop, some of Keikoan's regular co-workers included fellow highly-accomplished pros Bill Edler, Erick Lindgren, Bill Gazes, Matt Lefkowitz, and others. This victory paid $425,969, which was his second-biggest poker payday ever. Keikoan collected $550,529 when he won his first gold bracelet. Keikoan also finished 63rd-place in the 2007 Main Event, worth $154,194. With his hefty cash place in this event, Keikoan now has in excess of $3.2 million in overall career tournament winnings.The runner up, Dan Idema, is a 27-year-old poker pro from Vancouver, BC (Canada). Prior to playing poker for a living, Idema played ice hockey in the Western Hockey League. Idema nearly became the fourth Canadian to win a gold bracelet this year, after fellow countrymen Aadam Daya, Pascal Lefrancois and Miguel Proulx (today) won their WSOP victories. Second place paid a nice consolation prize amounting to $195,147. The top 54 finishers collected prize money. Former WSOP gold bracelet finishers who cashed in this event included – Matt Keikoan (1st) , Michael Mizrachi (8th), and David Chiu (9th).Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi is having a phenomenal WSOP, thus far. He won the Poker Players Championship (Event #2) and made his third final table this year. Mizrachi now has a 1st, 6th, and 8th place finish at this year’s series.With his ninth-place finish, David Chiu now has 50 career cashes. This currently ranks 11th on the all-time WSOP cashes list.A full report of this event will be posted shortly.For official tournament results and additional details, please CLICK HERE.