Josh Arieh Wins 2023 World Series of Poker $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship for Fifth Bracelet

Josh Arieh emerged victorious in 2023 World Series of Poker $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship to earn $316,226 and his fifth career gold bracelet. The win saw the 48-year-old become just the 34th player in poker history to win five or more titles at the WSOP.

“This is all new to me in recent years. I’ve crushed in 2019, 2021, 2022 and now 2023. It just shows how, put things right, put things right and everything works out’ said Arieh Card player after closing it. “I don’t play as well as these guys. I just… I don’t know what it is. You can ask anyone, and they’ll make fun of the hands I play and the things I do, but I keep getting there, so I’m doing something right.

This victory saw Arieh, 2004 WSOP third place main event and 2021 WSOP Winner of the Player of the Year award, he increased his career tournament earnings to over $11.3 million.

Arieh went into an unscheduled fourth day of play in this championship event as the shortest of the three remaining players, but managed to battle his way back into the lead and then held on to a tough heads-up battle with the three-time winner of Daniel Idema bracelet to close out the win.

“Walking [to play this event], I had the most calming feeling ever, it was surreal. I was walking by an older lady and thought, wow, she looks gorgeous today. And I walked by this family and I was like, wow, their family is beautiful,” Arieh said when asked about surviving the final roller coaster day. they mattered a lot. Everyone had to win the first few hands they got in or you ran out. And I was lucky to pick up a few hands and then I bluffed that worked. You know, I have great people on my side. I don’t play heads- up limit hold’em, but I had a five minute crash course for some guys playing in Bobby’s room and they’re really crushing, and here we are.

This was Arieh’s second limit hold’em bracelet win. The first of him came half a life ago, to 1999 WSOP. He won the $3,000 buy-in version of this event, walking out on top in the first ever cashing event in the series. His other three bracelets all came in pot-limit Omaha and pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better events.

This was Arieh’s first title and fourth final table of the year. He earned 660 Card player Player of the Year points and 316 Tour of PokerGO points as champion of this event. It now sits just outside the top 150 in 2023 POY extension race classification presented by global poker, and is now 15th in the “PGT extension classification.”:

This year’s limit hold’em championship series attracted 134 total entries, building up a $1,246,200 prize pool that was eventually split among the top 21 finishers. Big names that ran deep included 2021 WSOP main event champion Koray Aldemir (21st), three-time bracelet winner Paul Volpe (20th), Poker GO President Mori Eskandari (17th), three-time bracelet winner Ian Johns (16th), four-time bracelet winner Ben Yu (11th), bracelet winner Ronnie Bardah (9th), bracelet winner Kevin Song (8th), four-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman (7th), Nick Pupillo (6th) and three-time bracelet winner Joe McKeehen (4th).

The 2015 main event champion’s elimination was the last of day 3. He shoved the last of the chips all-in with K-9 facing Idema’s KQ and couldn’t come back. McKeehen took home $107,540 for his efforts, boosting his career earnings to nearly $20.1 million in the process.

When play was called off at around 2:30, Arieh was the shortest of the three remaining players, with Idema in the lead and Nozomu Shimizu, third place in the recent $5,000 no-limit hold’em freezeout event.

It was all Arieh who started Day 4, as he managed to climb into the lead before scoring his first knockout of the day. Shimizu had been left short after running into trips for Idema. He called his last big bet with 9-2 on an AJ-7-9 board. Arieh held J-10 for top pair and a river blank saw Shimizu bust in third place ($144,069). He now has $765,150 in lifetime earnings, most of which he won last week at the series.

Heads-up play began with Arieh holding 5,150,000 to Idema’s 2,995,000. Arieh built an even bigger lead early on, only to see Idema swing back to get ahead himself. The two went back and forth for a while, but eventually Arieh took a decisive lead and extended it until Idema was left with few bets.

In the final hand, Arieh raised with 94 from the button and Idema three-betta from the big blind with A2. Arieh called and the flop came 553.Idema bet and Arieh called. The turn brought the 9 and Idema bet again. Arieh raised and Idema raised all-in. Arieh called and the river was a 9giving Arieh a full nine of fives for the win.

Idema earned $195,443 as the runner-up. The former Canadian hockey player now has more than $2.4 million in recorded tournament earnings following this latest deep run.

Here’s a look at the prizes and ranking points awarded at the final table:

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