Freddy Deeb Wins $50,000 HORSE Event at the 2007 WSOP
Freddy Deeb (Credit: Bodog Beat)
Early Friday morning on June 29. 2007, Kassem "Freddy" Deeb bested a talented field filled with pros to take home one of the WSOP's most coveted titles. He placed first in the $50,000 HORSE event. The final table match was grueling, lasting almost fifteen hours.
At the end, Deeb, a native of Lebanon, received $2.3 million in cash, which is the fifth-largest prize won by a WSOP player and exactly the same amount Chris Moneymaker brought back after taking down the Main Event in 2003.
Deeb beat out folks such as Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Greg Raymer, Annie Duke, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and more to win the event, which, to many of these folks, is the biggest tournament at the World Series and the one that truly decides the best poker player in the world.
Why do they think this? Well, HORSE is a game unlike any other. It is a mixed game that requires knowledge of a great deal of poker variants including Stud, Texas and Omaha Holdem. As Deeb said after the win, “When I won my first bracelet, I was mostly a cash game player so it didn't really matter to me. But this one – it means everything to me. These are the toughest layers in the world. It has the highest buy-in. Except for the $10,000 buy-in (Main Event), this is the bracelet that means the most of any of them.”