Rafi is known for his colourful personality at the tables.August was his most profitable month to date, making over $1million in these 4 weeks alone.
Rafi Amit is taking advantage of the Omaha boom in a big way….
The explosion of Omaha popularity couldn’t have come at a better time for Rafi Amit.
The PLO and o8 specialist is one of the few players to boast significant winnings from both cash and online games: largely due to the sheer amount of money now around his favourite forms of poker.
Playing under the alias ‘howisitfeellike’, Amit is one of the biggest winners of 2008 to date, turning over a staggering $2.8million in the Full Tilt Omaha games since the turn of the year (only Phil Ivey, David Benyamine & Phil Galfond made more from January to September). August was his most profitable month to date, making over $1million in these 4 weeks alone.
So who is this online phenomenon cleaning up against the best players in the world? Well to ‘live’ connoisseurs, Amit’s name has been more synonymous with the WSOP since back in 2005. This was his breakthrough year as a professional, when the Israeli took down the $10,000 PLO Championship for $511,835. This win was not without controversy, however, as during heads-up play he was given a 10-minute penalty for swearing and saw almost $200,000 in chips swing over to his opponent Vinny Vinh. This managed to get him into an article by USA Today and was portrayed as a new breed of ‘rock star’ poker player (apparently one of his supporters threatened to meet Vinh in the parking lot after the tournament was over).
Amit continued to let his chips do the talking and in the 2006 WSOP cashed a further 6 times, final tabling two more events. One of these came when defending his $10,000 PLO title, where amazingly he came in 4th for $143,444. And last year Amit won his second bracelet in 3 years with victory (ironically) in a non-Omaha event ($1,000 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball) for $227,005. When asked by a Poker Listings reporter if the Omaha tournament he was playing in at the same time meant more to him, he replied: “Hell yeah. I didn’t really care about the bracelet in this one”, further underlying his affection for the game of Omaha. And after the 2007 World Series had finished he nipped over to the WSOPE to cash in yet another PLO event (16th for $17,278).
But he says the image of him being a ‘bad-boy’ of poker is unfounded, having been born and raised in a tightly-knot Israeli family from Holon (where he still resides). As he explained in an interview: “In Israel, if you’re a poker player, it’s like you’re a drug dealer. My family was like, ‘You’re losing your money, you’re losing your mind.” He began to make trips over to the United States, much to the displeasure of his parents, and started playing $4/$8 games frequently. Now he is a regular in the $200/$400 PLO games and reportedly has been seen playing the ‘Big Game’ ($1000/$2000 mixed) on occasions.
With live tournament earnings of over $900,000 and countless more money made online, he says his parents have come round to the idea of poker.
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