Rafi Amit is a professional poker player from Holon, Israel. In 2005, Amit made the news headlines, although probably not for the reasons he would’ve liked to. A virtually unknown player, he made it all the way to the heads-up stage of the $10,000 PL Omaha World Championship event. There, pissed off by the circumstances, he dropped the F-word and tournament officials jumped on the opportunity to dish out a rare 10-minute penalty. Amit was forced to stand around and to watch his stack slowly migrate to his opponent’s side of the table, until he was allowed to jump back in.
He eventually managed to make a comeback and he won the event to collect his first WSOP bracelet, together with a $511k prize.
Amit is not the rockstar-type poker player though. When his family first found out about his poker playing, they strongly disapproved. As he proved though that he could be successful at it, he was eventually accepted.
He won his second WSOP bracelet in 2007, in the $1,000 Deuce To Seven Triple Draw Lowball event, pocketing a $227k prize that time around. This achievement of his had quite of bit of history to it too as he was forced to play the final table simultaneously with the PLO Championship event due to a scheduling problem. He eventually managed to pull off the win despite the distractions. All-in-all, he has had 8 cashes in various WSOP events in his career.
Rafi Amit is a PLO specialist and plays online at Full Tilt Poker under the screenname howisitfeellike.