2007 WSOP Event 24 - World Championship Seven-Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better $3,000

  Phil Mickelson used to be referred to as the best player in the world to never win a major. Now that he has won a number of PGA majors he is now mentioned as the only athlete with perkier breasts than tennis star Maria Sharapova. Eli Elezra may not share a cup size with Phil or Maria, but he was mentioned in a similar manner that would suggest he was an incredibly talented player who just couldn't put his game completely together when it came down to playing in the World Series of Poker.  Eli is a former Israeli army commando. If Hamas and Hezbollah couldn't break him, simple words about his lack of WSOP bracelets were not going to go very far in damaging his self-esteem. The topic is one he may have found mildly vexing though. In fact, he had a bet with Barry Greenstein about his personal odds of coming away from the 2007 WSOP with a championship.  Barry gave him 10 to 1 odds that said the only bracelet that Eli was going home with this year was one that was purchased at Sears. Elezra showing supreme confidence in himself took the long odds and bet $25,000 that he would be a WSOP champion before the summer was done.  Eli Elezra faced off head to head against Scotty Nguyen for the Event 24 championship. This was not gong to be a David and Goliath type story; it was more like Goliath against a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Eli had 1,397,000 in chips while Scotty could only muster 20,000. Elezra went through Nguyen like an M-1 tank through a bunch of protesters armed with rocks and fiery rhetoric.  Regardless of how many pins Greenstein was sticking in his Eli Elezra doll in a Voodoo related effort to avoid paying the former commando a cool quarter million, the championship encounter was over in one hand. Eli had won his first WSOP bracelet.PlacePlayerPrize1Eli Elezra$198,9842Scotty Nguyen$110,7313Russ (Dutch) Boyd$71,6504John Harkness$47,2245David Sklansky$35,8256Thor Hansen$27,3577George Hardie$20,8448Marshall Ragir$14,9819John Cutter$10,422