Bodog Beat

Bodog poker pro Josh Arieh, pictured here with his wife, Angela, took down the $1,000 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha at the Wynn Classic last night. (Image Courtesy of PokerFolio.com)

The Wynn Classic has been going on at the Wynn Casino Hotel in Las Vegas for the past couple of weeks with a series of smaller buy-in events ranging from $300 to $2,000. As the $10,000 buy-in championship event draws closer the buy-ins have increased and so has the interest by high-stakes tournament poker players.

So far, several name players have cashed in these events, like Brandon Cantu (thrice! man, this kid is on a tear), Dutch Boyd (twice), Max "Italian Pirate" Pescatori, Thayer "Thay3r" Rasmussen, Darrell Dicken, Davids Levi and Plastik, Anna "Poker Pixie" Wroblewski and Tom "DonkeyBomber" Schneider, but no big name pro had actually emerged victorious yet. Enter Bodog poker pro Josh Arieh, who last night took down the $1,000 buy-in Pot Limit Holdem event.

Arieh's final table also played host to Ted Lawson (so, add him to the list of pros who have cashed at the Wynn Classic) and James Dunkelburger (no idea who he is, but what a name), but no one was gonna stand in between Josh and the sweet Wynn-shaped trophy and, more importantly, the $59,364 first-place prize.

So, congrats to Josh, although we're pretty sure the Wynn is not Iowa, which is where he promised he would go after the WPT LA Poker Classic if he busted out. You can't blame him though, the Wynn is in Vegas and Iowa is, well, Iowa.

Make sure you get a chance to play some poker in Vegas and go check out Bodog's 2008 WSOP online poker qualifiers.