Can Karim Rebei Click his Way to a WSOP Main Event Title?

July 13, 2022

Jon Sofen Senior Editor U.S.

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Another Fun One

Karim Rebei is attempting to become the next Jamie Gold, bluffing his way to the 2022 World Series of Poker Main Event title. But it may require him to limit the button clicking these next couple of days.

In 2006, Gold came out of nowhere to top the largest Main Event field in history — 8,773 players — to win $12 million, and he did so largely in part by pulling off a number of massive bluffs.

As the final table looms in this year's Main Event — they'll be down to nine by the end of the night — Rebei is attempting to take a similar route to a world title. His style of play, much like Gold in 2006, will either be his downfall or it will help catapult him to the top.

The Algerian poker player with over $280,000 in Hendon Mob results has been on quite the roller coaster ride the past week, consistently building a stack, bluffing off chunks of it, and then rebuilding, often in a short period of time. In the time it took to write this article, he went from over 56 million in chips to around to 30 million mark, and he'll probably bounce back before we can share it across social media.

Edit: Yep, he just won a three-way pot

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With just 20 players remaining at the time of publishing, Rebei was close to the top of the leaderboard, and he's been perhaps the most entertaining character at the PokerGO feature table. His style of play will certainly keep viewers interested into Thursday morning, likely when Day 7 will conclude.

The potential 2022 world champion from Algeria has played many interesting pots during the Main Event, but none more so than the following two hands that were, let's just say, head-scratching.

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In the first pot, against PokerStars ambassador and Argentinian freestyle rapper Alejandro Lococo late on Day 5, he was bluffed, or maybe he wasn't (his cards weren't exposed) in a button-clicking battle.

On a flop of 9♠8♥7♥K♥, Rebei bet out 140,000 and was raised by "Papo MC" to 485,000 before the original raiser clicked back to 1,135,000, followed by a weird min-raise to 1,785,000. Rebei then raised again to 4,000,000 before Lococo went for yet another raise to 5,700,000.

Rebei folded his hand face-down and Lococo showed AxJx.

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Say what you want about Rebei's style of play, but you can't deny he brings action to the game. On Day 7, he engaged in yet another button-clicking battle, this time against British poker player John Eames.

With the blinds at 250,000/500,000, Rebei raised it up to 1,400,000 in the small blind with 9♥6♠ and was called by Eames in the big blind with 3♠3♦. The flop was K♠K♦3♣ and action checked to the big blind who bet out 850,000.

Rebei then came in for an interesting check-raise to 2,000,000 before Eames decided to three-bet in position to 3,500,000 with a full house. That didn't scare away the aggressive Algerian poker player as he popped it to 5,500,000 with nothing. His opponent called and they both saw a turn of 4♠, which left Rebei drawing dead but he still bet out 3,275,000 and received a call.

The river was the A♦ and Rebei again attempted to bluff, this time for 4,500,00, but his opponent move all in for just 700,000 more. With nine-high, Rebei couldn't even call getting over 30-1 odds. There's a reason why PokerGO chose to feature Rebei on the main stage.

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