The 24-year-old Australian grew up watching Joe Hachem on TV but on Wednesday it was Hachem who was cheering on Graham to victory in Event 31 $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo of the 2013 WSOP.
“It helps having everyone here supporting me,” he said. “Everyone is close together in the Australian community, which is good.”
Graham, who resides in Melbourne, took down $255,942 for his efforts. It was only the second WSOP event he’d ever played.
Graham Wins 8th Aussie Bracelet, Greenstein Third
The victory was made more amazing by the fact Graham wasn’t even supposed to be here today.
“I was playing in a cash game for the last few days but everybody went to Los Angeles so I thought I’d play this,” he said.
The final day of Event 31, which started with 14 players, began with Graham dead last in chips with 129,000. When the final table was set at nine players, Greenstein was crushing with 1.5 million chips.
Greenstein appeared well on his way to a fourth WSOP bracelet but finally lost his chip lead to Graham four-handed. Graham seized the opportunity and ended up busting Greenstein and finally Johnson on his way to victory.
It was Australia’s eighth WSOP bracelet, which puts the country past Denmark and into a tie with Russia.
Here are the complete final-table payouts:
1st: Jarred Graham - $255,942 2nd: Marco Johnson - $158,379 3rd: Barry Greenstein - $99,091 4th: Noomis Jones - $71,924 5th: Gabriel Blumenthal - $53,096 6th: Loni Harwood - $39,803 7th: Eric Rodawig - $30,275 8th: Joao Pires Simao - $23,338 9th: Perry Green - $18,233Visit www.pokerlistings.com