Frenchman David Benyamine has won the PartyPoker Premier League IV title at the M Resort Spa Casino in Las Vegas beating UK young gun Luke “FullFlush1” Schwartz heads up to take down $476,000.
Schwartz was a significant chip favourite going into the heads up battle with 1.32 million compared to Benyamine’s 520,000 but an early double up with K-10 against K-7 saw Benyamine take the lead.
The final hand saw Benyamine again get the better of Schwartz who eventually pushed on a Q-5-3 board with Q-2 but the Frenchman called with Q-10 and sent his final opponent to the rail.
Benyamine said after taking the title, “It feels really good winning a title, I’m still not used to doing it. The whole time I never thought about winning, I just wanted to do what I thought was right. I know people always say that when they win but it’s true.
“Position in these final tables can help and I didn’t do anything special today, I just got hands at the right time and played them properly. Luke is a very impulsive player but I just stuck to my own game heads-up and it was enough.”
Schwartz was typically blunt in his post-tournament assessment. “I’m really, really disappointed – I keep getting second and third in these TV tournaments. I think I played the best this week and deserved to come first but that’s the way it goes – it just makes me want to take it down more next time.”
The overall payouts for Premier League IV were:
1: David Benyamine — $476,000
2: Luke Schwartz — $258,000
3: Giovanni Safina — $158,000
4: Daniel Negreanu — $132,000
5: Roland de Wolfe — $114,000
6: Phil Laak — $146,000
Beaten play-off players:
Ian Frazer — $52,000
[[p:J.C. Tran]] — $40,000
Failed to qualify:
9: Phil Hellmuth $38,000
10: Yevgeniy Timoshenko — $32,000
11: Vanessa Rousso — $32,000
12: Tony G — $22,000
In 2008 the event ways won by J.C. Tran and before that the title went to Andy Black.
