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REFAEL AMIT
AGE: 26
HOMETOWN: Holon, Isreal
YEARS PLAYING POKER: 3
YEARS PLAYING PROFESSIONALLY: 2
In the $400/$800 mix game at the Bellagio, a player pulls out
a brick of $50,000 in $100 bills tightly wound with numerous
rubber bands. An individual $1 bill is strapped on each end of
the wad, concealing the hundreds. Refael sees the brick and
quips (to the amusement of the rest of the table) “You must be a
strip dancer in one of the local clubs?” The player replies that it’s
his way of transporting more than $10k on airlines, stating that
agents would need a warrant to look inside the brick, since it appears
on the outside to be a stack $1 bills. Without hesitation Refael grabs the
brick, takes two $100 bills from the player’s stack, and readjusts it so
that now a $100 bill covers each of the $1 bills, turns back to the player
and says, “Well, now you can look like a poker player!”(more laughter
ensues).
After spending some time with Refael, you can’t help but notice he’s
an incredibly bright individual. Spend a little more time and you realize
he’s slightly nutty, with an incessant need to entertain himself by testing others with his sharp
sense of humor. This can easily
be a distraction from his
card playing talent at the table.
Refael is often playing as high as
$1,000/$2,000 mixed games, or
$200/$400 Pot Limit Omaha with a
$50k buy-in, and experiences daily swings
that can reach as high as $100k. Ask around and you’ll be quick to find
that he’s a monster PLO player (the game, not the terrorist group), who
appears to enjoy disturbingly long sessions (word is he’s been known
to play for days at a time, as long as the games keep going). It’s funny
to think he got his start in the $4/$8 Limit Hold’em game at the Luxor
during his first visit to Las Vegas some years back.
In the last year, Refael has just begun to play tournaments. As with
everything else he does, he makes it look easy, bringing home a
bracelet in the $10k Pot Limit Omaha event at the 2005 WSOP after
miraculously overcoming a 10-minute penalty while heads up against
Vinny Vinh. When asked what he loves about poker, Refael’s responds,
“I love the fact that most people think it’s all luck, and I love it when
Phil Hellmuth comes to play the cash games.”
AURANGZEB “OZZY” SHEIKH
AGE: 18 (as of Oct.’05)
HOMETOWN/CURRENT RESIDENCE: Staten Island, NY
YEARS PLAYING POKER: 1
YEARS PLAYING PROFESSIONALLY: 6 months
I typically ask the players I profile to tell me an
interesting poker story, so I can treat my readers to
something fun. When I asked Ozzy, his responses were
boring as hell, “Oh, this one time I went to Aruba,
or got to go to the Bahamas to play poker, yada yada
yada…” Then I realized this kid has no stories because
he’s only been playing poker a little over a year and
a half. He hasn’t been around the poker world long enough,
and isn’t old enough, for some crazy experience to happen
(and trust me there are plenty of nutty things that
happen in the poker world). The truth is, Ozzy himself
is the story.
To date, Ozzy is the most impressive
young player I’ve come across. This kid is
hands down the ickiest of the icky. He’s on
a skyrocket, speeding his way to the top of
the poker ranks. Ozzy is a regular player in
the $50/$100 NL game on UltimateBet, and
from time to time, you’ll see him jump into the
$100/$200 NL game on PrimaPoker. Like all
of the other young online phenoms I’ve come
across, Ozzy got his start in small stakes
online poker games. But it’s amazing to think
that a kid who so recently started playing has
already had daily wins big as +$120k and
losses of $70k, and won and lost pots as big as
$55k (against online whiz Phralad Friedman)
and $40k respectively.
It would be easy to think this kid hasn’t
been around the block and he’s just running
good. Ha! If you think so, I have no doubt Ozzy
will prove you wrong. The kid just got his start
playing major events, with one of his first
being at this year’s PokerStars Caribbean
Adventure. He placed sixth and picked up
$177k, making him the youngest player to
ever make a WPT final table. At 18-years-old,
Ozzy is truly unreal.
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