Really amazing accomplishment.

The $50k Poker Players Championship is one of the toughest events at the WSOP, featuring not just a high buyin, but a large number of games and a group of mostly very skilled opponents. Unlike the high roller NL events, which attract a fair number of rich businessmen, this one is almost all pros.

Mizrachi won it for the 4th time tonight.

Having 4 bracelets is impressive enough, but winning the PPC 4 times is really astoundingly good.

This is especially true in the age of solvers, game evolution, and everything else which makes keeping up with the top pros harder than ever. Mizrachi is not a studier. He isn't an intellectual. He is just a regular guy who happens to be a savant when it comes to poker tournaments, especially the PPC.

He also must be doing something different than everyone else. My theory is that he has a unique playstyle which matches up well with the pro players, and yet the rest of them probably play similar enough to each other to where their victory is more card-dependent.

That's a theory I was going to put to use at this WSOP for myself, but I only played 2 events this year, and didn't run well enough to really test it. That is, it may be correct to play a sub-optimal style in tournament poker, if it differs enough from everyone else's style to where it sets you apart from the crowd, and therefore might make you more difficult to deal with. It's a variation of the old theory of, "Play tight in a loose game, and loose in a tight game."

Anyway, congrats to The Grinder. He and I were never friends, but I always got along with him, and he was always pleasant at the table to everyone.