Sasha Sabbaghian is no stranger to making deep runs in World Series of Poker Circuit events with a gold ring up for grabs, but he came up just short two times before – finishing second twice at Thunder Valley.
He made the third try the charm by capturing the win at Graton Resort Casino in the $1,700 buy-in No-limit Hold’em Main Event by topping a field of 579 entries on Monday, August 26th. He took home the top prize worth $168,015 from the total prize pool worth $877,185.
We caught up with the local cash game player from nearby Granite Bay, California after the victory to have a chat about the well-earned win at the final table today that took his career tournament earnings up to $632,050.
“Usually when I make it this deep I always find a way to punt it off. That was my goal of the day, just don’t punt it off and I’ll be good [laughs],” said Sasha after the win.
He continued, “I like the money, and I enjoy the tournaments here. I don’t usually enjoy tournaments, but Graton and Thunder Valley are two of the stops where I actually enjoy playing so I try to play those here. It’s the vibes and the layout, It’s away from the casino, it’s way less grindy than Vegas and it’s more fun here and casual. It’s fun, even if I don’t win it’s still cool here.”
When he was asked about his approach throughout the action at the final table, Sasha offered these thoughts on his approach: “I just valued every big blind that I had, and I just tried to make sure that I did not give anything away in a really close spot. I really just took the safer route the majority of the time. When we started there were several short stacks, so I just needed to make sure I didn’t bust before any of them. And then things just worked out. I got that one big double with Ace-King vs. Ace-Queen, and that’s kind of where it all turned around, good timing.”
Here’s the Official Order of Finish
The big win for Sasha was just the culmination of all the events here at Graton, with a total of 18 gold ring events taking place from August 15-26. Here is a look at some of the highlights from the tournament series.
Some of the notables in the earlier events included $600 NLHE event winner Daniel Hughes, who added a WSOP Circuit gold ring to his trophy case that also includes RunGood ring as well. Fan favorite Rayo Kniep grabbed the title in the $600 six-handed NLHE event to take his career earnings close to $1.4 million.
East Coast poker professional Johnny Bromberg made his first trip out to Graton for this tournament series, and he picked up the title in the $1,125 NLHE event that took his career earnings up to the precipice of $1 million. Adam Curchcak is no stranger to success at stops in Northern California, and he added a WSOP Circuit gold ring to his trophy case that includes a once-and-future WPTDeepStacks title, and a RunGood ring as well. Curchack took home $6,607 as the champion in the $400 pot-limit Omaha event.
Pat Lyons also added to his run of success throughout California with a victory in the $3,250 NLHE High Roller event that was good for $36,477. The WPT Champions Club member now holds more than $1.2 million in tournament earnings. Elisa Nakagawa rounded out the action with her victory in the $400 NLHE Closer event. The $12,414 she won along with her first WSOP Circuit gold ring took her career earnings close to $250,000.
Here’s the Official Results in all the RIng Events
Ryan is one of the original PokerLiveUpdates team members, a veteran poker tournament reporter who provides live updates reporting from the World Poker Tour, along with other tours and locations. He developed the FunTour2.0 concept of providing tremendous tournament coverage while exploring the world's best craft beer venues.
